Man Shoots Woman and Turns Gun on Himself

An unidentified Oxnard man shot and killed a woman before turning the gun on himself Monday morning, leaving police with two dead bodies and sketchy clues about what led to the fatal encounter.

The gruesome drama, as described by witnesses, was played out in full view of the residents of an Oxnard apartment complex. Bystanders said that after the man shot the woman, he curled up next to her body and said, “I love you, baby,” before putting a bullet into his torso.

“It appears to be domestically related,” said Oxnard Police Sgt. Lee Wilcox. “The man shot her, and then turned the gun on himself.”

The woman and the gunman, described by police only as Latino Oxnard residents in their 30s, were taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center, where they were pronounced dead.

Police refused to release their identities pending notification of relatives. But authorities said neither of them lived at the complex where the shooting occurred.

Residents of the eight-unit complex in the 5300 block of Perkins Road struggled to cope with the shock of the shooting, which happened just outside the doorstep of a first-floor apartment.

According to witnesses, the woman was walking through the complex when the man suddenly appeared and pointed a weapon at her, which police identified as a .22-caliber gun. Some said they heard the woman cry out.

“I heard screaming, real awful screaming,” said a shaken and tearful Sandra Acezedo, whose apartment overlooked the shooting scene. “It was like she knew what was going to happen, like somebody was really afraid of something.”

Neighbors said the man fired once into the woman’s chest before grabbing her by the hair and firing two more shots into her head. As she collapsed to the ground, the gunman stood over her for a moment before lying alongside her.

“He was looking at her and telling her, ‘I love you, baby,’ ” said Solangel Avitia, 15, who lives in a second-floor apartment directly above where the shooting occurred.

To Monica Tapia, who had been putting away laundry in the bedroom of her apartment, the gunfire sounded like firecrackers. She looked out of a window just when the gunman shot himself.

“After he shot himself, I saw him trying to get up,” Tapia said. “But then he just fell down again.”

Avitia said she ran downstairs to the couple’s side and began sobbing. “I just felt so bad for her,” Avitia said.

It was unclear Monday why the couple were at the apartment complex, though at least one resident said she recognized the woman as someone who had visited the collection of small apartments before.

Investigators piecing together what happened were first led to another apartment complex several blocks over on Chester Way, where authorities believed the man and woman may have lived together with five of their children.

Neighbors of the Chester Way address said the couple who lived at the apartment had two teenage sons, two elementary school-age children and a 2-year-old girl.

But after several hours of scouring the small apartment, investigators abruptly left, after learning the dead woman had been misidentified, said Wilcox, who oversees Oxnard’s Major Crime Unit.

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Dirmann is a Times staff writer. Piccalo is a Times Community News reporter.