The mystery over who killed 47-year-old Jeffrey Ahlers is shaping up to be a regular "who done it" and Tempe police say there is no new information in the case the department can share with the public.
There are suspects, though -- it was either Ahlers himself or somebody else.
It's been more than a month since Ahlers' body was discovered shot to
death in a Tempe canal and Tempe police still haven't determined whether
Ahlers was murdered or if he committed suicide.
We spoke to Tempe police spokeswoman Molly Enright this afternoon who
tells us she has no new information in the case that she can release to
the public but says the investigation is active.
Enright still wouldn't say whether a gun was found at the
scene, which would seem to make sense if Ahlers had killed himself.
The delay in making any determination over who pulled the trigger could be due to the amount of testing the medical examiner has to
perform, which has probably been made more difficult because the body was
submerged in water for an extended period of time prior to being discovered.
Ahlers went missing on June 1, and was found several days later, dead,
in a Tempe canal with at least one gunshot wound on his body.
When police first discovered his body, they said they didn't think any
foul play was involved but later -- after finding the gunshot wound --
seemed very quick to suggest that Ahlers may have committed suicide.
At the time of his disappearance, Tempe police Sergeant Steve Carbajal
told New Times that from all accounts, Ahlers seemed to lead a
happy life with his wife doing volunteer work.
Several commenters on this
blog post, who claim to have known Ahlers, echo what Carbajal said
and find it hard to believe Ahlers would kill himself.
While police are staying hush-hush about whether they found a gun near
Ahlers' body, which would suggest he may have killed himself, the
alternative scenario is that he was murdered, and if that's the case the
murderer is still on the loose.
