Apparent murder-suicide probed
Friday, May 11, 2007 11:34 AM PDT
CALDER (AP) — An elderly couple and a younger man were found dead and a woman survived a head wound after being shot at a remote house outside this north Idaho hamlet, Shoshone County sheriff’s deputies said.
Deputies gave few details early Friday, but neighbors said a distraught man had wounded his estranged wife, killed her parents and committed suicide Thursday evening in a small wooden house a few hundred yards from the nearest dwellings.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Derek Dofelmire told The Associated Press the survivor was Rose Turner and one of the dead was Ricky Turner. He would not identify the elderly man and woman.
Rose Turner was ‘‘very lucky’’ to be alive and was flown to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Wash., where ‘‘she has been able to provide information to our investigators,’’ Dofelmire said.
More than one gun was recovered at the scene, he added. Shoshone and Benewah deputies closed a road off U.S. Forest Service Road 50, the St. Joe River Road, in the Idaho Panhandle about two miles east of Calder and 65 miles east-southeast of Spokane.
Neighbors told The Spokesman-Review of Spokane and KXLY and KREM Television that Ricky Turner is Rose Turner’s estranged husband and committed suicide after shooting her and her parents.
The Turners had three children, Ricky Turner was disabled, Rose Turner worked at a nursing home and her parents lived with her at the house, one neighbor, Julie ‘‘Tiny’’ Codoni, told the newspaper.
She said Ricky Turner was despondent over their divorce, which was scheduled to take effect Thursday.
When she talked to him Wednesday, ‘‘he was in really bad shape. He was hurting,’’ Codoni said.
‘‘He loved her. She was his life.’’
