Coroner: Son of I-5 chase suspect died of asphyxiation

A 5-year-old boy believed to have been killed by his father died from asphyxiation after a bag was placed over his head, the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office said Wednesday.

The body of Jordan Stewart was found in his family's Spanaway home after his parents were found dead following a high-speed chase on Interstate 5 Tuesday near Olympia, Wash.

Investigators said Joint Base Lewis McChord soldier David Stewart, 38, shot himself after the police chase in Tumwater. The body of his wife, Kristy Sampels, 38, was in the car. She had also been shot.

The Thurston County Coroner's Office ruled Sampels' death a homicide and Stewart's death a suicide, The News Tribune of Tacoma reported. The chase ended in Thurston County.  

Deputies went to the family's home to check on the couple's two children, where they found Jordan's body wrapped in a blanket with a plastic bag around his head. The Pierce County medical examiner said the manner of death was homicide.

Pierce County sheriff's detective Ed Troyer told The News Tribune that the boy had been dead for at least 24 hours before deputies found him and had bruising to suggest previous abuse.  

Sampel's 10-year-old daughter was found safe in Oregon with her biological father.

The Army confirmed that Sgt. David Franklyn Stewart was deployed to Iraq twice. His last tour ended in 2009. He was assigned to Joint Base Lewis McChord in March 2010.

On Facebook pages that appeared to belong to Stewart and Sampels, they sometimes wrote of the difficulty of being apart during the deployments and excitement at being reunited. The authenticity of the pages could not be confirmed.

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"Little more than 24hrs and im back with my beutiful wife and children," Stewart wrote on Sampels' page on Dec. 11, 2009. "Life is great!!"

Sampels also wrote occasionally about suffering from unspecified medical troubles. The Washington State Patrol initially reported that she appeared emaciated and that she had not been shot; the coroner's office later discovered the bullet hole.

The Facebook page appearing to belong to her said she studied nursing at Central Oregon Community College.

The Army reported that Stewart listed his hometown as Redmond, Ore.

This article includes reporting from NBC station KING 5 of Seattle, The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff.