Daughter Finds Elderly Oxnard Couple Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide

An elderly husband and wife living with terminal diseases were found shot to death Wednesday in the master bedroom of their Oxnard home in what authorities described as a premeditated murder-suicide.

Retired schoolteachers Paul C. and Peggy J. Doose, both 78, were found by their daughter, Carol Doose, about 1:15 p.m. in the family home in the 1800 block of Bearden Court, Oxnard Police Sgt. Lee Wilcox said. They had been married 55 years.

Wilcox said Paul Doose shot his wife, then turned the gun on himself. She was found lying on the bed and he was on the floor next to her. Both had been shot more than once, the Ventura County medical examiner’s office said.

In the living room, Paul Doose left a detailed, signed suicide note, the names and phone numbers of the couple’s doctors, and information on burial arrangements they had made with the Neptune Society, officials said.

“He described their life as it was. She was losing her memory and he was having a hard time with his illness and they wanted to be together forever,” Wilcox said.

In a telephone interview Wednesday night from her home in Carpinteria, Carol Doose said: “It was definitely done out of love. I have tremendous admiration for his strength and courage.”

Since Sept. 4, the couple had been living at The Victorian, a senior housing facility on Ralston Street in Ventura. Carol Doose said it appears that her parents took a taxi from the complex to their Oxnard home between 10 a.m. Tuesday, when she last saw them, and when she found them.

The facility has a sign-out sheet and residents are free to come and go, Carol Doose said. She added that neither of her parents drove and that family members had been packing the couple’s belongings in the house over the past few weeks.

Because of their failing health, her parents were struggling to care for each other in their independent living environment at The Victorian, Carol Doose said.

Peggy Doose needed constant care and was expected to soon be moved into an individual room at the facility--a separation that frightened the couple, Carol Doose said.

“They loved each other so much and were totally dependent on each other,” said Lucille Gaskin, a neighbor who was a friend of the Dooses since they moved to the neighborhood more than 10 years ago.

Peggy Doose had Alzheimer’s disease and Paul Doose had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, authorities said.

Mitch Breese, a coroner’s investigator, said autopsies are scheduled this morning.

Alzheimer’s is an irreversible condition characterized by the degeneration of brain cells and the loss of memory. With Lou Gehrig’s disease, the mind stays intact but nerve cells that control muscle movement deteriorate and the body quickly withers.

The discovery by the couple’s daughter, who visited regularly, shocked neighbors.

“They were pretty active until the last year or year and a half,” neighbor Carl Cortright said. “He was a skin diver and did it for quite awhile.”

In fact, Paul Doose was a veteran scuba diver who first dove of Catalina Island in 1935 and became a certified diver in 1968 at the age of 48. As recently as the summer of 1996, he was diving with eco-activists off the coast of Anacapa Island.

He was also a volunteer at the Channel Islands National Park Visitor Center and maintained the aquariums. He had served in the military and was active in Oxnard’s citizen crime watch program.

Peggy Doose did volunteer work and fund-raising. She enjoyed painting landscapes and was a rock and shell collector, Gaskin said. Before she became ill, she enjoyed genealogy and claimed that she was a distant relative of Jane Fonda, Gaskin said.

The couple moved to Oxnard from their mobile home in Malibu. They had traveled extensively in Africa and other countries, neighbors said.

In addition to their daughter, the couple are survived by a son, Paul R. Doose of Santa Monica, and two grandchildren. Doose is also survived by a brother and sister, and his wife is survived by two sisters and a brother.