More than a dozen Mandan families were displaced Thursday when an early morning fire sparked by cooking swept through a pair of apartment buildings on 15th Street Northeast.
“The way that things were laid out in the room, the location of Mr. Entzel, the location of the shotgun and then the multiple injuries to his body, we were not convinced it was a suicide at that point,” Deputy Brian Thompson said.
Chad Entzel, 42, was shot twice with a shotgun and died of his wounds in a bedroom of his Bismarck home, according to Dr. William Massello, who was the state medical examiner in 2020.
Nikki Entzel, 41, and Earl Howard, 43, a man with dual citizenship in the U.S. and Canada, were accused of plotting the death of Chad Entzel, 42, and attempting to cover it up through several means including starting fires in the furnace room and in the bedroom where the body was found.