Body Found in Burned Home Near Shooting

Santa Clara police said a fatal shooting on Enright Avenue and a house fire minutes later on the same block were connected, after officers found a second body inside the burned residence. The shooting happened around 12:30 p.m. on May 8 in the 600 block of Enright Avenue, near the Santa Clara-Cupertino border, where officers found a man dead outside a home, according to police and local television reports. Drones later located human remains inside the rear of a nearby house that had caught fire, and investigators entered the structure on May 9 after it was deemed safe, police said. On May 15, police said the case had been determined to be a murder-suicide involving estranged brothers. ### How did police first connect the fire and the shooting? Santa Clara police said the two scenes unfolded within minutes of each other on the same block. Officers were called first to the shooting scene, where a man was found fatally shot outdoors, and a nearby structure fire was reported shortly afterward, prompting a larger emergency response, according to police statements carried by ABC7 and NBC Bay Area. (abc7news.com) ABC7 reported that surveillance video from across the street showed two men speaking in a driveway shortly before gunfire erupted. The station said the footage showed one man pull a gun, shoot the other, and continue firing after the victim fell. Police later said publicly that the shooting and the fire were connected and described the attack as targeted, while also saying there was no ongoing threat to the public. (abc7news.com) ### What was found inside the burned house? Police said officers using drones spotted a body Friday evening inside the back of the burned home on Enright Avenue. Investigators did not immediately reach the remains because the fire caused significant structural damage, and police said they entered the residence about 11 a.m. Saturday after it was declared safe. (abc7news.com) NBC Bay Area and ABC7 both reported that authorities had not initially identified the person found inside the house or publicly said what caused the fire. The discovery turned what had begun as a shooting investigation into a two-death inquiry spanning adjacent properties on the same residential block. (abc7news.com) ### Who were the two dead men? ABC7 reported on May 15 that the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner had identified the two men as Mark Heflin of Santa Clara and Matthew Heflin of Bloomington, Indiana. Police said Mark Heflin was the shooting victim and Matthew Heflin was the shooting suspect whose body was found in the burned home. (nbcbayarea.com) East Bay Times reported that investigators said Matthew Heflin had traveled from Indiana to Santa Clara weeks before the killing and rented the house next door to his brother. That account matched police’s later description of the case as involving estranged brothers. ### What do investigators say happened? (abc7news.com) Santa Clara police said on May 15 that the shooting and fire were a murder-suicide. ABC7 reported that police tied the fatal shooting of Mark Heflin to Matthew Heflin, whose body was found after the fire at the neighboring house. (eastbaytimes.com) The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner’s public datasets show the county updates death records nightly, but the open-data pages available through the county do not by themselves provide the narrative detail police released in the case update. Police have not publicly laid out a detailed motive in the accounts reviewed here. (abc7news.com) ### What did neighbors see and hear? Richard Schoolcraft, a neighbor quoted by ABC7, said he heard gunshots and then saw the emergency response as the nearby house burned. Chris Martinez, another neighbor, told the station he called 911 within minutes and said the block filled quickly with police as residents were told to stay inside and lock their doors. (data.sccgov.org) ABC7 reported that some neighbors spent the weekend outside the police tape waiting for more information as helicopters, drones and heavy equipment remained on the street. Police told residents there was no further threat to the public even as investigators continued to process both scenes. (abc7news.com) ### What comes next in the case? Santa Clara police said earlier in the week that more information would be released as the investigation continued. By May 15, police had publicly identified the case as a murder-suicide involving Mark Heflin and Matthew Heflin, but authorities had not, in the reports reviewed, released a fuller timeline for any remaining investigative steps or the fire’s specific cause. (abc7news.com) Santa Clara’s public-records pages say police reports generally take about 10 days from the incident date to process, and the city’s fire department directs incident and fire-investigation requests through its records portal. Those records requests are likely to be the next public source of additional detail beyond the statements already released. (santaclaraca.gov) (abc7news.com)