{"id":406932,"date":"2025-11-26T22:12:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T22:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/406932\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T22:12:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T22:12:17","slug":"suspect-in-crimes-against-children-shoots-self-on-us-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/406932\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspect in crimes against children shoots self on US 60"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHOENIX \u2013 A man wanted for crimes against children apparently took his own life after police stopped him on an East Valley highway Tuesday, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>Justin Meritt, 42, died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on US 60 in Apache Junction, according to the Mesa Police Department.<\/p>\n<p>The death investigation <a href=\"https:\/\/ktar.com\/arizona-traffic\/us-60-reopens-apache-junction\/5782800\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">disrupted US 60 traffic<\/a> for several hours, with closures in both directions near Silly Mountain Road at times.<\/p>\n<p>Meritt became a suspect after police investigated an incident in east Mesa on Monday afternoon and developed probable cause to arrest him for crimes against children.<\/p>\n<p>The next day, Mesa detectives spotted the suspect driving on <a href=\"https:\/\/maps.app.goo.gl\/4t6DnWdiqWjapypV6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">US 60 near Silly Mountain Road<\/a> and pulled him over around 2:30 p.m., but he didn\u2019t respond to commands to exit the vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>After a SWAT team was called to the scene, detectives removed Merritt from his vehicle. He was already dead of a gunshot wound to the head, police said.<\/p>\n<p>No other details about the case were made available.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kstonezone\" data-show-count=\"false\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Follow @kstonezone<\/a><\/p>\n<p>We want to hear from you.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px;\">Have a story idea or tip? Pass it along to the KTAR News team <a href=\"https:\/\/ktar.com\/arizona-news\/crimes-against-children-kills-self\/5783267\/mailto:stories@ktar.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ktar.com\/newsletters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/KTAREmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"mobile-signup\"\/>\t&#13;<br \/>\n\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/KTAREmail-830x100-1.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0 auto;\" class=\"desktop-signup\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2013 A man wanted for crimes against children apparently took his own life after police stopped him&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":406933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[7155,5229,5643,1587,316,1589,7154,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-406932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-92-3-ktar","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-arizona","11":"tag-az","12":"tag-home","13":"tag-phoenix","14":"tag-phoenix-and-arizona-breaking-news-and-news-headlines-home","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115618300348534462","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}