An autopsy performed Tuesday has ruled that the death of an Effingham County Sheriff’s deputy Monday morning was a suicide.

The deputy was found Monday just after 9 a.m. by another deputy in an ECSO vehicle next to a sheriff’s office in Springfield. The deceased deputy was found with a gunshot wound.

Since the death involved a deputy, Effingham Sheriff Jimmy McDuffie called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

“All deaths we investigate are a loss we feel,” McDuffie said. “But when it is one of our own, it hits hard.”