Wash. woman, boyfriend dead in apparent murder-suicide

GRAHAM, Wash. (AP) - Pierce County sheriff's investigators think a woman fatally shot her estranged boyfriend, then drove to a church parking lot and killed herself, a sheriff's spokesman said Tuesday night.

"We're not looking for anyone else," spokesman Ed Troyer said. "The evidence tells us this is homicide and suicide."

The man and woman lived with his mother in a house in the community of Graham but were in the process of breaking up, Troyer said.

The man's mother arrived at the house about 10 a.m. Tuesday and assumed her son was asleep in his room. When several hours had passed and he didn't come out, she knocked on the door, then forced it open and found his body.

The man, in his 30s, had a gunshot wound to the head, Troyer said.

Detectives got a search warrant but found no weapon so they "ruled suicide out right away" and started looking for the girlfriend, who was also in her 30s, Troyer said.

On Tuesday night, officers found the woman's new pickup truck in a Tacoma church parking lot about eight miles from the home. The woman was dead inside the truck from what Troyer said is believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The Pierce County medical examiner will identify the couple.