Norwalk police found the suspect, Gilbert Orlando, hiding in a wooded area on the northbound side of Interstate 95 between exits 15 and 16.
Investigators say four hours earlier the 56-year-old shot and killed his ex-wife, 57-year-old Enid Dickens-Orlando and her 73-year-old mother, Rona Knight inside their Couch street duplex in South Norwalk.
"He must have went through the side door with his ladder and went in there. I think he tried to light the house on fire at first and then he went in and do the shooting," said Lincoln Yetman, a relative of the victims.
Orlando divorced his wife last month, but police say he still lived at the Couch street home, where investigators found a 357-magnum with two live rounds still inside. The powerful weapon holds six bullets. Neighbors heard the booming gunshots around eight in the morning.
"I didn't know really what happened. But when I saw the ladies running and a screaming, I said maybe something bad happened," Ricardo Fernandez, a neighbor, said.
Investigators are quite familiar with the Orlando home. In the last 8 years they've responded to a half-dozen domestic disturbances there. The chief of Norwalk Police Department, Harry Rilling, told reporters that police arrested Orlando in 2008 for violating an order of protection. He also said no such order was currently in place.
"We believe that he knew what he was up to, he knew what he was doing. We don't feel that there was just a random act and just shooting," said Rilling.
"And I pray for that family. But him...give me in a room with him and let me do the job," said neighbor, Marie Marcia.
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