Police: Husband kills wife, sets fire, takes own life
Authorities believe an Oley Township man killed his wife in the driveway of their residence early Tuesday morning, July 9 — hours before he intentionally set fire to their 19th century stone farmhouse with a propane blowtorch.
Moments after the first fire official arrived on the scene, Stefan L. Strunk, 62, turned a gun on himself at the edge of the couple’s driveway.
Central Berks Regional Police Chief Raymond Serafin said that the exact details and specific circumstances that led to the tragic murder-suicide will most likely never be known.
“I don’t know if we’re ever going to know exactly what happened,” the chief said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon at the police station. “We know from family members that there was a history of some abuse, but there is no motive as to why he ended up doing what he did. And we may never know.”
The initial call to Berks 911 was made by a neighbor who noticed the fire at the end of Creeks Edge Road, a one-lane, half-mile road that bisects a cornfield off Covered Bridge Road, just north of Yellow House, Serafin said.
The caller saw Stefan Strunk outside the home, but not his wife, Joy L. Strunk, also 62. When a fire chief from Amity Fire Company
arrived, he saw the man standing in the driveway and noticed his wife dead on the adjacent paved area leading to a barn.
As the fireman was parking his truck, he heard a pop and saw Strunk drop onto the driveway. A Central Berks police officer arrived moments later.
The fire had apparently been burning for an extended period inside the centuries-old stonewalled house, evidenced by the collapse of the thick wooden floors prior to the arrival of firefighters.
Serafin said his detectives and a state police fire marshal are still investigating.
Preliminary indications are that Stefan Strunk was trying to burn the house down while his wife was inside. The fire was set inside the front door, and he was found with an acetylene torch.
Joy Strunk may have been shot after she escaped the fire, and her husband watched the house burn, Serafin said.
“I would say she died a good period of time before firefighters showed up,” he added.
There is a history of some domestic incidents between the couple.
Mount Penn-based Central Berks Regional police have been called to the home since taking over police coverage of Oley Township, which dissolved its small department two years ago. But those incidents were “nothing substantial,” Serafin said.
When Oley Township police were still active, they did have contact with the couple over documented domestic issues, he said.