Couple Dies in Murder-Suicide : Crime: During an argument, David Davtyan shoots his wife, Vardush Davtyan, then commits suicide. She dies an hour later. His mother heard the shots.

A husband fatally shot his wife during a quarrel in the bedroom of their apartment Wednesday, then committed suicide, authorities said.

David Davtyan 36, died instantly from the single gunshot to the head at the apartment in the 500 block of East Windsor Road. His wife, Vardush Davtyan, 37, died of a head wound an hour later at Glendale Memorial Hospital, police said.

David’s mother, Perchuhy Davtyan, 63, said she was in another room of the apartment when she heard the two shots at about 2 p.m. She “knew they were engaged in serious discussion regarding their marital problems,” said Lt. Raymond Edey of the Glendale Police Department.

They were both shot with a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol registered to David Davtyan that he bought in June, said Edey.

Late Wednesday, grieving relatives and friends gathered in a neighboring apartment unit, some in tears, and said they were shocked at the murder-suicide.

Rima Ter-Galstanyan, 18, said she heard the dead man’s mother scream, ran over to their apartment and called police. “She heard the shots but didn’t know what they were,” Ter-Galstanyan said.

The couple’s three children, ages 10 to 14, were at school at the time of the shootings and are staying with a nearby relative, police said.

David’s father, Petros Davtyan, 84, sat quietly at the dinner table with his head down but would not speak.

Jiny Hwang, 17, lives with her parents in the apartment adjacent to the Davtyans. She said the argument before the shootings sounded like “someone was smashing furniture.”

“We knew they had some kind of problem because they fought a lot,” said Jiny, a friend of the couple’s oldest child. “We could hear it through the walls.”