Lincoln County and White Pine County Sheriff’s deputies last Friday found the body of 63-year old Bruce Hendrix dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head in a remote corner of Lincoln County.
Garrett Estrada of the Ely Times, reported a statewide manhunt had been issued a few days earlier for Hendrix in connection with the death of his wife Julia, and two counts of arson.
The White Pine Sheriff’s department issued a press release saying Mrs. Hendrix body was discovered after the Ely Volunteer Fire Department was called to a fire at the Hendrix home on Dec. 8.
At the same time, another fire was reported at Hendrix’s business office on East Aultman.
The Clark County Coroner’s office confirmed Mrs. Hendrix had been killed by a gunshot prior to the fire. She is reported to have asked for a divorce just days before the murder.
The release also told media contacts that Hendrix was presumed to be armed and dangerous and anyone who came in contact with him should not approach, but call 911 and report his location. He was believed to be driving a 1988 two-tone brown Chevy pickup with a camper shell.
Thursday evening, Dec. 11, Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee said he was informed some hunters, who had been in a remote part of Lincoln County, had reported the Chevy truck as being one they had seen earlier in the week near Shingle Pass, in the far northwest corner of Lincoln County, where Lincoln, White Pine and Nye County’s converge, a little east of Railroad Valley South. They had seen the wanted posters when they returned to Ely and notified the Sheriff.
Lee said he and some of his staff, went out early Friday morning Dec. 12, and met up with two deputies from White Pine and a BLM Ranger at the location reported by the hunters.
They located the vehicle and a few hundred yards away found the body of Hendrix, sitting up against some rocks on a rocky overlook. “It would have been very difficult to find had we not had a location given leading us to that area,” Lee said. “Probably would have been some time otherwise.”
Lee speculated Hendrix had probably been dead since Dec. 9. “It’s our belief he came to that area shortly after the incidents in Ely,” Lee said.
Motive for the murder-suicide, Lee thought, may have been because of the divorce request and difficulties with his CPA business in Ely.
