3 Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide In Harlem, Suspect Possibly Started Apartment Fire
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Three people are dead after an apparent murder-suicide in Harlem, and the killer may have tried to cover up the crime by starting an apartment fire.
Police are still trying to figure out what exactly led to the incident, CBS2's Marc Liverman reports.
On Friday, Mary Hall came home to find firefighters, cops and a SWAT team surrounding her apartment on West 131st Street.
"They said my neighbors are dead," she said.
Police say they first got the call for shots fired just before 3 p.m. When they got inside, they found a 78-year-old man lying dead in the first floor hallway with a gunshot wound to the head.
Officers also noticed smoke coming from that apartment, so they say they called for backup and forced their way inside. They then found another body -- a 59-year-old man dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
On the second floor of the building, there was another victim. A 62-year-old woman had been shot in the head.
Hall says she lived across the hall from the 59-year-old suspect.
"He doesn't speak. He didn't help. If he saw me coming out of my apartment and he was coming out, he would close his door and go back in until I left the building," she said.
Police say all three lived in the building, but it's still not clear what the relationship was between the victims.
"Him and his wife were feuding with a guy that lived underneath him and evidently -- it's been going on for years -- and evidently the guy just snapped," neighbor Ronnie Mitchell said.
"He had issues with them. He said they made too much noise," Hall said.
Police also say they recovered two guns inside the suspect's apartment.