Authorities on Tuesday identified the two people found shot to death on May 6 at a northwest Albuquerque apartment complex as 61-year-old Judy Brockman and 40-year-old Roland Sterling, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

Police believe Brockman shot Sterling's cat, then Sterling himself before turning the gun on herself some time between midnight and 1 p.m. May 6 at the Riverwalk apartment complex on the 3500 block of Calle Cuervo NW, the Journal said.

It took a full week for police to release the identities because Brockman was known to use multiple names and that both were somewhat distant from their families, the Journal reported.

9:40am 5/8/08 -- Likely Murder-Suicide Also Claims Cat: Police say a woman shot her roommate's cat, the man and then herself at a NW ABQ apartment.

The identities of a woman and a man involved in an apparent murder-suicide Tuesday at the Riverwalk Apartments on the 3500 block of Calle Cuervo NW are still being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

But police are now saying a woman in her 60s shot the man she was living with, who was in his 40s, after shooting his cat, then turned the gun on herself some time in the 12 hours before police arrived at their apartment around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman, Officer Nadine Hamby said police still don't know whether the two, who had different last names, were married, a couple or simply roommates. 

Officers had gone to the apartment complex to check on the couple after the man's brother told police he hadn't been able to reach the couple, the Albuquerque Journal reported this morning.

Neighbors who spoke to the Journal said the couple had lived at the complex for about a year and had always seemed happy and in love.

Hamby, told ABQjournal.com that neighbors told police they had hadn't heard or seen anything out of the ordinary in the hours leading up to discovery of the bodies.

The only thing approaching a reason for the shootings, Hamby told us, was that the couple was having financial difficulties. 

Your Name:

Your Email Address:

Rate this article:
Poor Great

Comment:

BOLD

"QUOTE"

UNDERLINE