MOORESVILLE (AP) ó One of the two dead in a weekend shooting that also left the couple’s two adult sons critically wounded appeared to have committed suicide, authorities said today.
The Iredell County Sheriff’s Department declined to detail how the early Sunday shootings happened. Investigators had not been able to interview the survivors, the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
Investigators earlier told neighbors they were not looking for a gunman and believed the killer was one of the dead.
“That’s what we’re thinking,” Iredell County Sheriff’s Capt. Darren Campbell told The Associated Press Monday.
The dead were Douglas Alan Thomas and his wife, Linda Malone Thomas, both 57, investigators said.
Their sons were living at their parents’ home and were in critical condition Monday at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, the sheriff’s department said. They were identified as Christian Edward Thomas, 25, and Douglas Alan Thomas Jr., 28.
Deputies responded to a 911 cell phone call from one of the two wounded men. Deputies arriving at the house said they heard survivors cry for help from arriving officers, then found the two dead adults.
Next-door neighbor Alina Adams told The Charlotte Observer she sometimes spoke with the woman but rarely spoke to her husband.
“He was almost unnaturally quiet,” Adams said. But neither she nor other neighbors found him unfriendly, she said.
Neighbor Kim Sargoni told the newspaper the family was “very quiet” and didn’t usually participate in neighborhood activities, such as giving out Halloween candy.
“They very much kept to themselves,” Sargoni said.