Arizona couple killed in shooting spree were friends with suspected gunman

FOUNTAIN HILLS, Arizona - Police said that the shooting deaths of a couple at a Fountain Hills home is connected to a killing spree in which a man identified as Dwight Jones murdered four other people, reports CBS affiliate KPHO. The bodies of 70-year-old Mary Simmons and 72-year-old Bryon Thomas were found early Monday. 

Their deaths bring the total number of victims that police believe were killed by Jones to six.

Police say Simmons and Thomas had a "social/recreational relationship" with Jones. Simmons and Jones met four to five years ago through tennis and would occasionally meet to play at local parks. 

A motive in the couple's killing remains unknown. The other four victims are believed to have been linked to Jones' contentious 2010 divorce and custody battle. They were a well-known forensic psychiatrist who testified against him in the case, two paralegals who worked for the law office that represented his wife, and a marriage-and-divorce counselor who was apparently targeted in a case of mistaken identity.

Neighbor Thomas Kositis told the station that police came to his door just before midnight on Monday and asked for the couples' phone number.

KPHO reports that deputies said they weren't getting an answer at the home of the husband and wife just before 12:30 a.m. on Monday so they used a ladder to look into a window. That's when they discovered the couple shot to death.

Police said they were conducting surveillance on Jones and he was seen driving in the area, and later seen dumping a .22-caliber gun stolen from the Fountain Hills home of Simmons and Thomas.

Neighbor Kositis, who says he has known the couple for 15 years, was very emotional.

"They were good people," he said.

Police said Jones shot and killed himself inside his room at an Extended Stay America in Scottsdale as officers closed in on him early Monday morning.