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A former deputy sheriff who left the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff;s Office 16 years ago was found dead early Sunday morning on a road in Fosters, Alabama. Investigators believe he killed himself and is also responsible for the death of his wife and a man she was with. (Stephen Dethrage | al.com)

-- A domestic dispute turned into a double murder and suicide late Saturday night and early this morning, leaving a former Tuscaloosa County Deputy Sheriff, his wife and the man she was with dead, according to the Tuscaloosa Metro Homicide Unit.

Sgt. Dale Phillips, the commander of the unit, said the former deputy sheriff, a 52-year-old man, was found just before 1 a.m. Sunday morning with a single gunshot wound to the head after someone called in the need for unspecified medical help.

Further investigation of the scene, which was somewhere near 15282 Sylvan Loop Road in Fosters, quickly led to the discovery of a white Ford F-150 pickup truck that was wrecked down an embankment near the first body. Inside the truck, deputies discovered the bodies of a 51-year-old woman and another 52-year-old man.

Phillips said his investigators determined that the former deputy sheriff had confronted the woman in the truck, who was his wife, and the man who was with her at the other man's residence, and when the two took off, he began to chase them in his vehicle.

Phillips said the suspect definitely rammed the vehicle duo and may have also fired shots at them as he chased them down the road. The end result, though, was that he drove their truck off the road, down an embankment and into a ditch.

Phillips said the man then got out of his vehicle and walked over to the edge of the ditch before shooting himself once in the head and taking his own life. Phillips said this may have been a reaction to seeing that both the man he was after and his wife were dead in the truck below.

The names of the departed have not been released because their families have yet to be notified of theirs deaths, but Phillips said they would be publicly identified after that happened.

Phillips said the former deputy sheriff left his job at the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office in 1997 for other job opportunities outside of law enforcement.