Elderly Couple Are Found Shot to Death in Home : Tragedy: Police believe case is a homicide-suicide. Neighbor says pair were in ill health--and lonely.

An elderly couple were found shot to death in their home Thursday in what police believe was a homicide-suicide.

Police said the couple might have decided to end their lives because they were despondent over their poor health. A neighbor described the two as lonely.

Olive Gessner, 83, and Jose Marquez, 71, were found in their home in the 1600 block of Howland Lane by neighbors who became concerned that the two had not picked up their mail since Tuesday.

Police and neighbors said Gessner had suffered three strokes and was confined to a wheelchair. Marquez also suffered from a heart condition, said Huntington Beach Sgt. Ron Burgess.

“We think the motive was health reasons,” Burgess said. “They didn’t want to continue to feel the way they did.”

Burgess said it appears that Marquez shot Gessner once in the head and then turned the gun on himself. The two were found in the living room with Gessner slumped in her wheelchair and Marquez seated in another chair with a gun still in his hand, Burgess said.

Irene Flores, Gessner’s neighbor for the last 20 years, said she became concerned about the two because she had not seen them since Tuesday and called police after spotting the them through their living-room window.

The two had been married at least 12 years, said Flores, who described them as “an average couple.” Flores said that in the last few years Marquez had to take care of Gessner, bathing, feeding, and driving her around to do errands.

“They would bicker like any couple, but other than that they were OK,” Flores said. “They had a good relationship,” she said. “He was tender.”

But besides ill health, the two also suffered from some loneliness, she said.

“They wanted attention,” she said. “When you visited, they’d want to talk a lot.”

Gessner is survived by a grown son who lives in the Reno, Nev., area, and Marquez has two grown sons who live in Orange County, police said.

“I feel pretty rotten,” Flores said. “I was pretty close to them. To find them like that, it was hard to take.”