Two Men Found Shot In Head, Burned Alive Dead 48 Hours After Incident In California

Two men who were found after being shot in their heads and burned alive in Roseville, California, have died, the Sacramento Bee reported. The victims succumbed to their injuries more than 48 hours after being found ablaze in a parking lot.

The victims have been identified as Warren Alexander Galsote, 34, and Jason John Benson, 33. The two Sacramento, California, residents were found in a rural area by a resident Thursday around 11:20 p.m. The unidentified resident saw a fire from his house, called 911 and tried to extinguish the blaze, only to realize later Galsote and Benson were the source of the fire, Dena Erwin, a representative of the Placer County Sheriff Office, told the Sacramento Bee.

Officials found the men alive but in “grave” condition, the Bee reported. One victim had been shot twice in the back of the head and the other had been shot once, officers said. The men had been covered in gasoline and set on fire. After ambulances arrived, the victims were transported to a local hospital where they succumbed to their injuries Saturday, just before midnight.

The area where the victims were found was described as a gravel parking area in front of a home day care and near a halfway house. Roseville is a rural area in northern California about 120 miles northeast of San Francisco. The men were found standing “in the middle of the road.” The resident who reported the incident had put out the flames with a hose.

“This is extremely unusual for this neighborhood,” Kevin Shcmicking, a resident, told KMAX-TV, Sacramento. “I’ve lived here for over 30 years, and we never had anything like this.”

The Placer County Sheriff’s Office’s is investigating the deaths as a double homicide, the Bee reported, and has no additional information to share on how the event unfolded. The victims are said to have no known prior connection to the crime scene.