WA- 3 deaths called murder-suicide

Posted in Related Deaths

12-12-2005 Washington:

Pullman police believe shooter is among bodies found in condo

PULLMAN – The shooting deaths of three people at a condominium complex here appeared to be a double murder-suicide, Pullman police said Sunday.

Louissa A. Thompson, 27; Peter A. Zornes, 25, of Oakesdale, Wash.; and Trevor S. Saunders, 29, of Moscow, were found dead inside Thompson's unit at the Statesman Condominiums, 1220 NE State St., on Saturday night.

Detectives said Sunday they recovered a semi-automatic pistol from the unit and believed the shooter is one of the people found dead.

Police were summoned to the complex about 7 p.m. Saturday when one of the people killed didn't show up for work at a Pullman store. They entered through a back sliding door left open and found the three bodies. Police did not give a motive for the shootings.

The exact cause of death won't be known until autopsies are completed in the next several days.

Stan Cox, the manager of the condominium complex, said Thompson moved into the ground-floor unit in August and had two small children. He did not think the children were home at the time of the killings. He did not know the two men.

Cox said residents at the complex are mostly retired people and graduate students and faculty at Washington State University. He did not know if Thompson was a WSU student.

"It's a pretty quiet place," Cox said.

The condominium complex was also the site of the town's last homicide in 1996, when Dorothy Martin, 89, was asphyxiated during a burglary.

The keys from the manager's apartment were stolen to gain access to Martin's unit.

"I found her," Cox said. "I came awful close to doing the same thing yesterday."

Cox said he heard loud noises, but not gunshots, coming from Thompson's unit Saturday and knocked on the door, but no one answered. He did not know what time that was.

"We didn't hear any shots. We didn't see anything until we woke up and opened the curtains and saw the yellow police tape," said Carol Bagby, a condominium resident.

Carol and her husband, Carroll, moved into the complex three months ago.

Their ground-floor unit has floor-to-ceiling windows facing the condominium's courtyard and is adjacent to Thompson's unit.

The Bagbys watched as detectives and forensics specialists with the Washington State Patrol crime lab came and went all day Sunday.

"This is really a quiet part of town," Carroll Bagby said. "We moved here from Tacoma to get away from this kind of (violence)." ..more.. by Sara Leaming

---

WSU Honors Graduate Killed In Pullman
12-13-2005 Washington:

One of the men found shot to death in a Pullman condo was a WSU honors graduate and the other was a registered sex offender. They were found Saturday with a dead woman in her condo. Police said it's a double-murder-homicide, but they're now saying yet who fired or what the motive or relationship may have been.

University officials said Peter Zornes, 25, of Oakesdale graduated with honors two years ago in neuroscience. A university administrator said he also coached Little League baseball and played the trumpet in the university's jazz ensemble. Also found dead was Trevor S. Saunders, 29, of Moscow, a registered sex offender in Idaho who was convicted nine years ago of rape in Latah County.

They were in the condo unit belonging to 27-year-old Louissa Thompson. Neighbors said they heard sounds Saturday morning but did not recognize them as gunfire. The bodies were found after police were asked to go to the apartment to check on Zornes after he didn't show up for work. ..more.. : by KIRTV.com