When officers arrived at Van Der Linden’s home, the door was open and the bodies of Van Der Linden’s 34-year-old wife and two sons, 4 and 7, were inside.
LaPorte County Medical Examiner John Sullivan reported that each victim was found in their beds.
Van Der Linden was last seen leaving his home on Wednesday before 10:00 p.m. according to police.
For an unknown reason, Der Linden began driving eastbound in the westbound lanes on I-94. The wrong way driver crashed head-on into Juan Nelson Jr. 45, or Portage Indiana at 1:35 a.m. and both men were killed in a fiery explosion. It is now believed that Linden killed his family before taking that suicide drive.
In December, Linden had overdosed on pills in a botched suicide attempt according to Van Buren Township Police Capt. Greg Laurain.
Van Der Linden is the “prime person of interest” in the homicides, and police have ordered toxicology reports to determine if he was drunk at the time.
“We don’t know if he was drinking, what the mind set was, we don’t know if this was done intentionally or accidentally,” Laurain said. “We don’t know.”
