Firefighter Kills Himself After Out-Of-State Sex Arrest

INDIANAPOLIS -- A Lawrence Township firefighter, who was arrested for traveling to Ohio to meet with a fictitious minor he had chatted with online, killed himself soon after the arrest.

Detectives said Cpl. Tim Craney, 29, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head early Saturday.

Marion County sheriff's deputies started searching for Craney at about 2:30 a.m. after family members found a suicide note in his apartment. His body was found at about 4 a.m., 6News' Tanya Spencer reported.

Craney was a Lawrence Township firefighter for nine years. Chief Warren White had placed him on paid leave Friday after the arrest.

Police said Craney had traveled to Fairborn, Ohio to solicit sex from a minor. But, officials said the person he had been chatting with on the Internet was actually a Fairborn police detective.

"He was an above average firefighter," White said. "He was a good person, did his job, showed up on time. He had been incarcerated and, when that happens, we have a step program, and that program at that point was to put him on administrative leave until we found out the details."

The details will now remain at least partially unknown. Craney bonded out of jail in Ohio just 12 hours before he took his own life in a cornfield near his apartment.

"A family member had received a call from him indicating that he was requesting that particular family member to report to their home in the morning, that his wife would be upset," said Marion County sheriff's Maj. Larry Jahnke.

Craney was newly married. He leaves behind a wife and extended family. His firefighter family mourns one of their own.

"When one brother falls, no matter how, it's tough on everybody and we are just saddened," White said. "Taking their own life under an allegation -- I just would have hoped that we could have helped and that's the empty feeling that I think all of us feel."

The fire department has counselors available for any of Craney's colleagues.