‘Such a shock’: Mundelein police say 5 killed in apparent murder-suicide
Five people were found shot to death in Mundelein in what police on Monday called an apparent murder-suicide.
The bodies of three men and two women were discovered late Sunday night in a house on the 200 block of Wellington Avenue. Their identities hadn’t been released by authorities as of Monday evening.
Officers went to the house about 11:45 p.m. after a relative who had been unable to contact one of the victims called police, officials said.
The officers entered the home through an unlocked door and discovered bodies in several rooms, Deputy Police Chief Rick Wilfenger said. All seemed to have been shot at close range with a handgun.
Two of the deceased lived in the house where the bodies were found, police said, and two others were family members. A fifth person found dead had been in a domestic relationship with the person police believe killed the others before dying by suicide, police said.
Two handguns were found in the home, police said.
Police hadn’t received any reports of gunshots, Wilfenger said. The department has no history of emergency calls from the house, he said, nor was there a history of police interactions with the deceased.
Autopsies were being conducted Monday by the Lake County coroner’s office.
The one-story, maroon-shingled house remained cordoned off by yellow police tape Monday morning as journalists and onlookers gathered outside for any developments. Police also temporarily taped off and inspected a Volkswagen sedan in the parking lot of the neighboring Kristan Funeral Home.
Jim Wipper, a funeral director at Kristan, learned of the deaths when he showed up for work about 8 a.m. Monday. He said the Kristan staff didn’t know the residents well.
As the day went on, the tape around the house came down and the crowd disappeared, with just a couple of TV news trucks remaining along the roadway.
Wellington Avenue resident Debbie Wunluck called the older man and woman who lived at the house “very quiet people.”
The violence was “such a shock,” Wunluck said.
“Nothing like this happens around here,” she added.
A resident on nearby Prairie Street who declined to give her name said the woman who lived in the house was kind and a cat lover.
“I’m still in shock,” she said.
Mundelein police, the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force and the coroner’s office are investigating.
Anyone with information is asked to call police at (847) 968-4600.
rlissau@dailyherald.com