Couple’s Deaths Baffle Friends, Relatives : Tragedy: None can reconcile the apparent murder-suicide with the pair they knew. A report on the coroner’s investigation is due today.

Family members and friends struggled Thursday to determine what led to the apparent murder-suicide of Nancy Green and John Simmons, a couple who a relative said had dated for almost five years and lived together for three of them.

Simmons’ sister, Elter Portis, said she last saw the couple together Monday afternoon having dinner at her apartment.

Although they had their tumultuous moments, her brother and Green had an “ordinary couple’s relationship,” Portis said.

According to police, a 10-year-old girl dialed 911 Wednesday about 3 p.m. to report finding the bodies of her aunt, Green, and Simmons, both 31, in the upstairs bedroom of Green’s townhouse in the 3000 block of South Bradford Place in Santa Ana.

Based upon the preliminary investigation, police are ruling that Simmons shot Green and then turned the gun on himself. A .38-caliber handgun was found, Santa Ana police spokeswoman Maureen Haacker said.

The coroner’s report on the deaths will be released today, but “the initial report that the investigators did led them to believe that it was a murder-suicide,” Haacker said.

Portis, 34, said the idea of her brother shooting his girlfriend was not consistent with the man she knew.

“He was caring, giving,” Portis said. “They (went) on trips together; they (walked) to the grocery together. Even after Nancy moved back with her sister, they still did things together.”

Portis said Simmons brought Green to her apartment Monday night where they ate dinner.

“Everything seemed fine; she was even feeding him dinner,” Portis said.

According to Green’s neighbor, Mitch Tate, Simmons arrived at Green’s townhouse Wednesday morning to take her to work. Green shared the townhouse with her older sister Evelyn Reyes and Reyes’ 10-year-old daughter.

The 10-year-old “had heard them (Green and Simmons) arguing before she left for school,” Tate said Wednesday night. She came home after school and saw both bodies in the bedroom, he added.

Neither Tate nor Reyes could be reached Thursday.

Hani Zayid, owner of the Station Liquor Market in Tustin, said the deaths stunned him. He said Simmons and Green had strolled hand in hand into his market at least three times a week for five years until Green moved away.

“I can’t believe it,” said Zayid, 31. “They were both so friendly. We knew each other by name. They seemed just like any other couple.”