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Police: Ford Avenue deaths apparent murder-suicide

News File Photo A bouquet of flowers sits outside a home where police responded to a report of gunshots on Oct. 15 in this Oct. 16, 2020 file photo.

ALPENA — The two deaths following a shooting at a home on Ford Avenue last month were apparently the result of a murder-suicide, police said today.

Elifonso “Eli” Mata II, 26, fatally shot 21-year-old Meagan Soik at the house on the evening of Oct. 15, according to police.

Mata then turned the weapon on himself, police said.

Mata was still alive when police arrived and was taken to MidMichigan Medical Center-Alpena and later transferred by helicopter to another facility.

He died two days later from his injuries.

The investigation is ongoing.

Police said they don’t expect to release further information about the incident.

Lt. Eric Hamp of the Alpena Police Department said the department delayed release of specifics of the incident during the investigation out of consideration for the families involved.

“We owe it to the family to make sure that we get this right and do a thorough job,” Hamp said. “And that takes time.”

The incident was the second murder-suicide of the year in Northeast Michigan, where such crimes are rare.

In August, an apparent murder-suicide took the lives of brothers James Polluch and former Alpena Municipal Council member Michael Polluch. Their bodies were found at the scene of a fire in a barn on Long Lake Road in Alpena Township on Aug. 13.

Michigan State Police reported that James Polluch killed Michael Polluch and then himself, motivated by a lengthy disagreement between the brothers.

At least three other suspected murder-suicides have taken place in Northeast Michigan in the past decade.

A fire, started by Pat Pokorski at a house on U.S.-23, killed the former Presque Isle Township supervisor after he stabbed and killed his son, Ross Pokorski, in June 2017, police reported.

In 2016, Atlanta woman Danielle Klein was fatally shot by Eric Shay outside her vehicle at his Hillman residence. Shay notified a family member of Klein’s to pick up her child from his home before shooting himself, according to police.

Rebecca Thomas-Campbell, of Flint, who was separated from her husband, was shot by him in a parking lot outside an Alpena-area apartment complex where she was living with family members. Antonio Campbell then shot himself. Thomas-Campbell was taken to the hospital but succumbed to her injuries. Campbell was pronounced dead at the scene.

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