A Wyoming man has been arrested as a murder suspect after the death of a truck driver was staged to look like an accident, according to Weld County investigators.
Mark Dean Switzer, 67, was taken into custody Thursday on suspicion of first-degree murder in the death of 49-year-old Nathan Combs, the Weld County Sheriff’s Office stated in a news release.
On May 18, 2017, deputies responded to the intersection of Weld County roads 136 and 77, west of Hereford, on a “report of a possible fatal traffic accident,” the sheriff’s office said.
“The preliminary information suggested that the driver of an 18-wheeler semi-truck was performing maintenance on the vehicle when the vehicle unexpectedly moved, and the driver was run over by the vehicle,” the release said. The driver, Combs, of Burns, Wyo., was declared dead at the scene.
Further investigation, however, revealed that Combs died of gunshot wounds that were not self-inflicted, the sheriff’s office said.
Detectives working on the case ultimately focused on Switzer, and a search warrant was served at his Carpenter, Wyo., home where several firearms and ammunition were seized. The evidence was sent for testing and analysis to the Northern Colorado Forensic Regional Laboratory, the FBI, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
The long investigation and “resulting lab analysis” from the firearms and ammunition lead to Switzer’s arrest, the sheriff’s office said.
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