Heartbreaking: 11-year-old calls 911 after parents' murder-suicide
WAKE COUNTY, N.C. -- Crime scene investigators worked into the night Wednesday, combing over a North Carolina crime scene as stunned neighbors looked on.
It's the kind of neighborhood where neighbors talk to each other. They know each other. At least they thought they did.
"I'm shocked about it. I can't believe this. It's heartbreaking, especially for those kids," said Andy Holt, who lives across the street.
Friends and family, like Esnarda Torres, rushed to the house in disbelief.
"We never thought something like this would happen," Torres said.
Torres' cousin, 32-year old Martha Yses Campusano Cisneros, was found shot to death inside the home. Her husband, 47-year old Emilio Rodriguez-Rizo, was found injured with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He died on the way to WakeMed.
The Wake County Sheriff's Office is investigating the scene as a murder-suicide that played out with the couple's three young children inside the house. The couple had a 3 and 4 year old. Their 11-year-old brother was the one who called 911.
"What's so sad about this is those three kids. What bothers me is I don't know what they saw or what they heard, but that's something we're working on," said Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison.
Torres told ABC11 that Martha and Emilio were equal partners in their own landscaping company called, Bowman's Tree Service. They also said the couple had been arguing more and more in recent weeks.
"He would just go crazy on her some times. He was a very impulsive person. So we think that definitely contributed to it," Torres said.
If the couple was having trouble, neighbors never noticed. They described a happy family.
However, the couple's loved ones said the problems were new. There was a family gathering just two weeks ago, and no one could've predicted this.
"We were all together. We had a nice family reunion," Torres said. "[Martha and Emilio] were happy. They seemed happy, and then all of sudden, the next day, everything just turned differently".
Investigators are looking into any history of domestic violence between the couple.
The couple's three children are in the care of relatives.
