NEWARK — A Licking County deputy sheriff and his wife are dead after a double shooting at their residence in Newark Township.

Deputy David Lewandowski, 34, worked in the patrol division of the sheriff’s office. His wife, Elizabeth Lewandowski, 24, was a nurse at Licking Memorial Hospital.

The preliminary investigation indicates a murder-suicide, said Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was called to the scene of Thursday night's shooting and is handling the investigation.

Few details — including who fired the shots — have been released by Thorp, who called both of the Lewandowskis "victims" in a Facebook update Friday. Ohio BCI would not release information.

The first autopsy was underway but not yet completed Friday afternoon, according to the county coroner’s office. The second is to be completed this weekend.

Authorities responded about 8:15 p.m. Thursday to the residence in the 4500 block of Price Road after someone arriving to visit the couple found them, Thorp said. Deputies then arrived to find the couple fatally shot, he said.

The two had been married since December 2015.

"I would ask that as a community we keep the victims in our thoughts and prayers, as well as the extended work families of the Licking County Sheriff's Office and Licking Memorial Hospital," Thorp said in the Facebook statement.

Thorp said he called in BCI to investigate in the interest of transparency and to avoid any conflict of interest, but also “to protect our folks and our investigators from going through the emotional part of having to conduct that investigation.”

David Lewandowski had been with the sheriff’s office since 2006, working mostly in the jail division before switching to the patrol division in the past two years, Thorp said. He previously worked for about eight months as an auxiliary police officer for the Pemberville Police Department in Wood County in northwestern Ohio.

His performance reviews in his personnel file indicate that he met or exceeded most expectations during his time with the sheriff’s office. Recent reviews said he kept calm in high-stress situations.

A review in 2009 stated that Lewandowski had been counseled by a captain on his attitude and behavior, but it didn’t offer specifics. In 2008, it was documented that he had received a written reprimand; the reprimand was no longer in his file when The Dispatch reviewed the file Friday. Deputies can petition to have certain write-ups removed from their file after some time.

jsmola@dispatch.com

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