File photo of police tape. The bodies of Kathryn Dawn Rogers and her husband Michael Dean Rogers, aged 55 and 56, were found Wednesday at their house in the town of Blue Mountains, an affluent vacation area about 10 kilometres west of Collingwood.John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
A relative of an Ontario couple, who were found slain last week in their resort town cabin, died in a car crash two days after the bodies of his family members were discovered by police officers.
Police said Wednesday that the man who died in a Springwater, Ont., highway crash last Friday night was 48-year-old Adam Rogers from Barrie. The collision happened about an hour's drive from the home of Kathryn and Michael Rogers. Their bodies were found at the home, in the town of The Blue Mountains last Wednesday, when police followed up on a missing person complaint.
"We're obviously investigating both incidents, they're both ongoing cases," said Ontario Provincial Police Constable Lynda Cranney.
Constable Cranney said Adam Rogers was related to the slain couple but wouldn't specify how. She said the cases are being investigated individually. "One case is being investigated as a homicide and the other is a car crash," she said.
She wouldn't say whether police are still searching for a suspect, or whether the victim of the car crash was ever a suspect in the case.
The double homicide shocked residents in the resort town of The Blue Mountains, home to a full-time population of only 6,450. Mr. Rogers, 56, had worked as the manager of the home services department at Blue Mountain Resort for more than two and a half years, making him the key contact for village home owners.
He and Ms. Rogers, 55, lived in a Kitzbuhl Crescent cabin. They purchased the home in 2008, according to property records, and before their deaths the home had been up for sale for $895,000.
Police said the home's sale, along with all aspects of the couple's lives, would be probed during the investigation.
No information has been released about the causes of death in the double homicide.
The OPP's technical traffic collision unit is still probing what caused the highway crash, said Constable Cranney. Police said in their original statement that it appeared the vehicle being driven by Mr. Rogers crossed into the path of a tractor trailer driving in the other direction, leading to a head-on collision.
With research from Stephanie Chambers