Lummis Killed His Wife, Himself, Autopsy Shows

Jordan Lummis, the 91-year-old son of Los Angeles pioneer Charles Lummis, fired the shots that killed himself and his elderly wife last weekend in the bedroom of their South Pasadena home, an autopsy revealed Wednesday.

Lummis shot his 83-year-old wife, Gregory, once in the head, according to a coroner’s spokeswoman. Lummis then turned the gun on himself and inflicted multiple gunshot wounds, the spokeswoman said. Although coroner’s officials classified Lummis’ death as a suicide and his wife’s death as a homicide, sheriff’s investigators still have not determined whether the Saturday killings resulted from a suicide pact or were a murder-suicide.

A suicide note left by Jordan Lummis, whose father founded the Southwest Museum, indicated that his wife was in poor health and that he did not want to go on living without her, sheriff’s spokeswoman Mary Landreth said.