Husband, wife found dead in apartment

Marisa O’Neil

Police found the bodies of a married couple shot dead in an apparent

murder-suicide Wednesday, after concerned loved ones asked officers

to check on the couple.

The woman had sent a text message to a friend or relative

Wednesday morning that gave the recipient cause for concern, Newport

Beach Police Sgt. Steve Shulman said. She called police to check on

the woman’s apartment in the 200 block of Lugonia Street, Shulman

said.

Police arrived at the duplex just after noon, where they found the

two bodies with gunshot wounds in an upstairs unit, he said. Officers

recovered a handgun at the scene and found an open sliding door,

Shulman said.

“We don’t believe there are any outstanding suspects,” Shulman

said Wednesday night. “Our final investigation will determine if it

was a murder-suicide.”

Police released few specifics on the incident, aside from

confirming the couple were married. They would not discuss the text

message’s content.

The names of the two victims were not released as of press time.

They were not, Shulman confirmed, the bodies of Thomas and Jackie

Hawks, a Newport Beach couple who have been missing for more than

three weeks.

Newport Beach City Council member Steve Rosansky, a neighbor to

the duplex, said he knew the woman in the upstairs unit but only in

passing. She first bought the building about six years ago and moved

out for a while after she married, then moved back a year ago, after

a divorce or separation, he said.

She lived with her son, whom Rosansky said is about 10. No

children were home at the time of the incident, Shulman said.

Neighbors speculated that one of the victims may have been a woman

in her 30s named Lisa. She had recently married a man after a brief

engagement, they said.

The woman had recently finished remodeling the building after a

fire damaged her home about two years ago, neighbor Harry Yost said.

“She took me inside and showed me around and showed me the

blueprints,” Yost said. “I didn’t know her too well; we said ‘hi’ in

passing.”

The neighborhood, mostly duplexes, has a high turnover rate of

residents, Yost said. A couple had just moved into the downstairs

unit of the woman’s building, neighbors said.

A “For Rent” sign was in the window of the woman’s upstairs unit

Wednesday night. A new BMW convertible, with its paper plates still

on, was parked behind yellow crime scene tape at the bottom of the

apartment’s stairs in the side alley .

Neighbors gathered on the street Wednesday night, thirsting for

any information police were willing to give. Members of the media

assembled, and detectives went in and out of the house late into the

night.

The scene was an unexpected one in West Newport, neighbor Kevin

Carias said.

“This is a neighborhood where you not only don’t lock the door,

you leave it open,” he said. “This is literally the last thing you’d

expect here.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4618 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.