Fire damages murder scene

VERNON - Fire crews were called to a blaze late Thursday that destroyed a garage where last week a woman was beaten to death.

Crews were called at 11:35 p.m. Thursday for a fire at a garage at a home at 4918 Bushnell Campbell Road, a spokesman at the Trumbull County 911 Center said Friday.

It's the same garage where the body of Tricia Wade, 31, was found. Her boyfriend, Nathan A. Riggs, 26, of state Route 7, told a 911 dispatcher that morning that he beat her because he ''couldn't take it anymore,'' according to a transcript of the call originally placed by Riggs' mother.

Trumbull County sheriff's detectives could not be reached Friday, a holiday, to say whether they believed the fire was related to the murder. Vernon fire Chief Lawrence Foltz also did not return several calls seeking comment.

The fire gutted the garage, which was unattached to the mobile home at the address. Yellow crime scene tape surrounded blocked off the garage Friday evening.

Unconfirmed reports said investigators considered the fire suspicious.

Riggs was indicted by a Trumbull County Common Pleas Court grand jury Thursday on charges of aggravated murder and gross abuse of a corpse.

Deputies arrived about 4 a.m. June 27 after Riggs and his mother called. Wade's four children were home at the time but are not considered eyewitnesses to the crime, deputies said.

Riggs remains in Trumbull County Jail in lieu of a $2 million bond.

Prosecutors said the corpse abuse accusation pertains to Riggs' claim that after Wade was dead, he drank a beer, poured some on her and hit her again.

The home where Wade was killed is near a 3957 Bushnell Campbell Road home that 21-year-old Ronald Machado and 20-year-old Krystle Weaver listed as their address when they were accused of killing a Greenville, Pa., man May 21. Machado later committed suicide in the Trumbull County Jail and Weaver has been extradited to Mercer County. Reports say both were arrested at the home.