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Jeff Allen Ahlers, the 47-year-old Tempe man whom Salt River Project workers found dead in a canal yesterday afternoon, was discovered to have wounds on his body that Tempe police say are consistent with a gunshot.
Tempe police spokeswoman Molly Enright tells New Times cops don’t have a whole lot of information at the moment and that investigators are trying to determine whether the incident was a suicide or a homicide.
Enright wasn’t immediately sure where on Ahlers’ body the gunshot wound was located.
Ahlers was last seen about 6 a.m. Tuesday as he left his house in the 4800 block of South La Rosa Drive for his morning walk.
Ahlers, Tempe police say, never returned home.
We spoke to Tempe police Sergeant Steve Carbajal on Wednesday, and he said Ahlers often walked along canal paths near his home and that there was nothing out of the ordinary about his behavior before his disappearance.
Carbajal said Ahlers has a good relationship with his family and spent his time doing volunteer work with his wifel.
Enright tells us today that detectives are in the process of investigating Ahlers’ personal life to try to determine whether he may have had a reason to kill himself, or if he was murdered.
Check back to Valley Fever for updates.
