33-year-old Eric Ringenberg disposed of his family’s phones, strangled his two young sons, set his home on fire and then committed suicide in the house’s basement, police allege.
Pamela Ringenberg, Eric’s wife, was taken to local hospital to receive treatment for smoke inhalation. Since the incident, she has uploaded a statement on her Facebook, asking her friends for love and prayers: “Friends and family. I do not have my phone so I could not reach you all directly nor will I be monitoring Facebook for quite some time….There will be some news coming out soon and I ask you just refrain from judgement and understand this is a very difficult time. Please just pray for all my family. Thank you.”
Police state that the home surveillance cameras located throughout the house helped them to determine major facts about the murders of the two boys and the start of the fire.
From the footage, authorities learned that Pamela woke up to the smoke alarm outside her room going off. She frantically searched for her phone to reach out for assistance, but was unable to find it. She can also be seen hysterically looking for her family, but was unsuccessful in locating them, too. After breathing in too much smoke, she left the house and ran to a neighbor’s for help.
The video footage also shows Eric hiding the family’s phones in various places throughout the house before he started the fire. The surveillance videos also displayed Eric Ringenberg playing a solitary part in the murder of his sons. Authorities claim he purposefully started the basement blaze once the children had been strangled.
Assistant Police Chief Clay Wheeler revealed that investigators spent around 36 hours at the crime scene digging through char looking for evidence. Wheeler also stated that video footage sheds light on how Eric took his own life by hanging.
As of now, Pamela is reported to be in fair health, but struggling to come to terms with what has happened to her family.