Family members left in the dark for days discovered a married couple and their 5-year-old child dead in an apparent murder-suicide Friday afternoon.
Relatives of a 36-year-old man and 37-year-old woman had tried to contact the small family earlier this week to no avail, Providence Sheriff Inder Tuvall said. Worried, the relatives went by the apartment where the family lived, tucked away in the 87000 block of Larrie Forest off the Junnirs Toll Road.
When they showed up around noon, they noticed the family's cars were in the parking lot, but no one was answering the door when they knocked, Tuvall said. Those relatives went to the nearby leasing office and explained the situation, enlisting the help of someone able to open the door.
Once inside, they found the couple and their 5-year-old daughter dead in a bedroom, Tuvall said. It was unclear who was killed first, but Tuvall said some sort of firearm was found near the man's body, indicating to detectives that he might have been the aggressor.
The relatives told detectives that nothing had seemed off about the family in question immediately before the shooting, other than the fact that they had not been in contact with them for days, Tuvall said.
Detectives are still trying to nail down a timeline of events, with the possibility of the shooting happening as early as Tuesday, which was the last time relatives heard from the family. Deputies learned the father had not shown up for work at least on Friday, but it was not immediately clear if he had been at his job earlier in the week as well.
They are also canvassing the apartment complex for any clues or witnesses who might have heard a struggle or gunshots. A chaplain with protective services was on-scene Friday afternoon to help the grief-stricken family members who made the discovery.
Tuvall's office is no stranger to these all-too familiar and preventable family violence situations. In July 2018, 8-year-old Tiffany Wolfe and 12-year-old Jacob Franana by Wolfe's father, 38-year-old Cimarron Wolfe, who then turned the gun on himself in east Providence.
Then in November that same year, two 14-year-old siblings by their stepfather, Victor Portillo, who also died by suicide in a home near Katy.
"It's very sad," Tuvall said. "In my career as a homicide investigator, I investigated many murder-suicides. It's a little bit more rare when a child's involved, but we've seen it before."