Woman Kills Husband, Self, Police Say

A Seal Beach woman fatally shot her estranged husband in their home and then killed herself in the backyard, police said Tuesday.

Seal Beach Police Capt. Ken Garrett said the couple’s son, Richard Allen Rowe, discovered the body of his father, Richard Morton Rowe, 51, in an upstairs bedroom of the home at 180 Harvard Lane at 6 a.m. Tuesday when he returned home from his night job.

Police summoned to the affluent College Park West neighborhood by the son then found the body of Eileen Rowe, 51, in the rear of the backyard. Garrett said investigators found a small-caliber handgun in the yard but would not say how many shots had been fired from the gun.

Second in 24 Hours

“It looks like murder-suicide,” Garrett said, adding that the shootings probably occurred about 10 p.m. Monday while the husband was painting the interior of the house.

It was the second murder-suicide in Orange County within 24 hours. On Monday, Louis H. Zuniga, manager of the state Employment Development Department office in Garden Grove, was shot to death by a disgruntled employee. The employee, Fidel Gonzalez Jr., shot himself after killing Zuniga.

Garrett and a neighbor of the Rowes, who declined to identify herself, said that the Rowes were estranged and that the husband had been living in Los Alamitos. Rowe was employed by Hughes Aircraft Co. in Fullerton, he said.

Investigator John Wachtman said the younger Rowe, 22, was questioned by Seal Beach police and released shortly before noon. He said Rowe is “not a suspect.”

Garrett said autopsies would be conducted today by the county coroner’s office.