PORTAGE (WKZO AM/FM) — Police now confirm that Christopher Lockhart left a note before he hung himself in the basement of his home on Poplar Bluff in a quiet Portage Neighborhood.
His death came five months after the disappearance of his wife and he became the prime suspect in her likely homicide.
Portage Public Safety Chief Nicholas Armold says they never cracked thru the wall that Lockhart put up after his wife’s disappearance. They still didn’t have enough of a case to make an arrest and they had no idea where to find her body. They couldn’t be 100% sure she was really dead, but they suspected that was the case.
In the note that Lockhart left, was a map that led them to the spot in the Allegan Game area near Swan Creek Marsh where he buried Theresa Lockhart’s body in a shallow grave, and there was also an apology and a request for forgiveness.
He also filled most of the vital gaps in the story needed to give most people closure, although Armold specifically refused to go into any detail on how her death was explained.
The note also provided a narrative of what happened, a story that was all too familiar. A troubled marriage, an abusive husband who one day by his own admission, snaps during an argument, kills his wife, panics and tries to cover up her death, and tortured by it leaves a note and kills himself.
Chief Nicholas Armold says they dispatched a detective to personally inform her family once they had a positive identification from the preliminary autopsy.
Armold says they are still waiting on autopsy reports on the precise cause of death. He says those may take longer because of the condition of the body when they found it.
Now that it’s been confirmed that Theresa Lockhart is dead, Schoolcraft schools will have grief counselors on hand for the next few days for anyone who may have trouble coping with the news.
Lockhart taught Spanish in the district for the last few years, and it was her Principal at the school who was first to report her missing.
They issued a statement saying “It is with tremendous sadness and a heavy heart that Schoolcraft Community Schools acknowledges the passing of Theresa Lockhart. We are all saddened by her death and send our deepest condolences to her family, friends, colleagues and students. Like so many others, all of us at Schoolcraft Community Schools have been holding out hope for a very different outcome since the news of her disappearance last May.”
