BIG RAPIDS TOWNSHIP, Mich — A father and son were killed in a mobile home fire in Big Rapids Township Wednesday. The Mecosta County Sheriff's Office considers their deaths suspicious.
The fire was first reported at 8:40 a.m. when a 911 caller saw smoke coming from the Circle Drive Mobile Home Park on 185th Avenue.
Mecosta County Sheriff Brian Miller said the two people inside were father and son, 69-year-old Keith Totten Sr. and 32-year-old Keith Totten Jr., who were killed.
After firefighters put out the flames, they found Totten Sr. in the southern portion of the home in a bedroom, and Totten Jr. on a couch in the common area of the mobile home.
Sheriff Miller said deputies believe the fire started in the bedroom on the south side of the trailer.
"It's in the early stages but again, we don't have a cause necessarily and because of not having a cause and the circumstances circumstances involved we're gonna consider it suspicious in nature and because of that, we want to make sure that we're being thorough and doing the best investigation we can to find some kind of an answer on the cause of the fire and the causes the death of two individuals inside," Sheriff Miller said.
"It's a totality of the circumstances. The two people died inside different rooms. Some of the other circumstances at this point that I really can't speak to make it that make it suspicious."
"The older gentleman may not have been the most mobile and based on where we found him we don't believe that that was the case. And the second one based on circumstances and how we discovered him doesn't believe that there was any attempt to flee," Sheriff Miller said.
Law enforcement had recently done a few well-being checks at the home due to a family member not hearing from the older man.
The sheriff's office called the Michigan State Police Crime Lab to help them investigate the cause of the fire as well as how the two men died.
Detectives from the Sheriff's Office were joined by the Michigan State Police Crime Lab from Grand Rapids, Big Rapids Township Fire, Big Rapids Fire, Mecosta Fire and the Mecosta County EMS.
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