Deputies: Man police wanted to question about burglary, flea market fire kills self

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. — A man who wound up dead inside a Brevard County home during a standoff Friday was expected to be questioned about burglaries and a huge fire at a flea market.

The man was holed up inside a home on Riverside Avenue in Merritt Island.

Police said the man killed himself.

When Brevard County sheriff's deputies went to the Merritt Island home late Friday, they planned to question a man about some recent burglaries.

But the unidentified man barricaded himself inside his friend's place.

"My nieces ran into the house saying, 'There's police! There's police!' And everyone's got their guns drawn, so they ran into the house. So that's when it got scary," neighbor Heather Greene said.

There were some tense moments.

"There was a small child in the home. The individual released the child immediately. It was not his child," Lt. Mike Scully with the Brevard County Sheriff's Office said.

Hours later, WFTV was told a robot was sent into the home on Riverside Avenue, but it couldn't get to the man behind a closed door.

Deputies rammed it, and that's when they said they found him dead.

His death leaves questions about a car burglary and aggravated battery in Cocoa on June 13.

Cops were in the process of getting a warrant signed to arrest him.

Sources said deputies wanted to talk to him about a break-in at the Skeeter Lagoon Family Grill earlier in June that was caught on surveillance video.

Shortly after that, a fire erupted at the Space Coast Flea Market on the same property as the burglarized business.

It was ruled arson, and investigators think the same man was involved.

WFTV