NEW YORK (AP) – Firefighter Salvatore Princiotta worked around the clock at the World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11 attacks: Family members say he helped put out fires, led injured people out of the area, and spent a week digging through the smoking rubble for his uncle, a deputy fire chief.

He eventually got sick with lung problems, retired from the fire department and recently moved to Arizona, hoping the abundance of sun and fresh air would be just what his ailing body needed.

But on May 14 – five years to the day after the remains of his uncle, Chief Raymond Downey, were found at ground zero – Princiotta was found dead in his Arizona apartment. Police said there were bullet wounds in his decomposing body.

On Friday, the suspect in the slaying committed suicide after police cornered him in California, authorities said.

Police are saying little about the suspect and nothing about why he killed Princiotta, only adding to the mystery surrounding the former firefighter’s final days.

But one thing is for sure – Princiotta is one of hundreds of first responders who got sick after Sept. 11 and now blame their health woes on the toxic fumes and dust at ground zero.

In January, Princiotta moved from his Manhattan apartment to Arizona because he was having trouble breathing. After several hospitalizations, he retired from the FDNY four years ago.

“He was brokenhearted,” said his brother, Joseph Princiotta of Deer Park, a Long Island community where family members have lived in six houses along Oak Street for decades.

“You could say Sal was a victim of 9/11,” the brother said. “He would never have moved to Arizona if 9/11 hadn’t happened.”

Hundreds of miles from the haunting memories, in Scottsdale, Ariz., the 43-year-old retired firefighter hoped for a new life in