Garland police detectives are investigating a possible murder-suicide that occurred in the early hours of Wednesday.
Police dispatchers received a 911 call at around 2:30 a.m. from a man claiming that he had murdered his wife and was about to kill himself, according to a news release by the Garland Police Department.
Patrol officers were sent to perform a welfare check on the man’s residence, which was located in the 1800 block of Vine Drive in Garland. They discovered the bodies of a married couple, 65-year-old Luat Nguyen and 66-year-old Kim Phi Nguyen.
Although an official cause of death has not yet been declared by the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office, the preliminary findings suggest that the male victim — Luat Nguyen — died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The female victim, Kim Phi Nguyen, had reportedly been shot several times in a different room of the home.
The investigation into the incident is still ongoing; however, if officially ruled a murder-suicide, it will add to a growing number of similar offenses seen in the Lone Star State.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Texas leads the nation in a disturbing trend of so-called “family annihilation” cases. These refer to incidents in which a person kills two or more members of their family in a single event.
In Dallas, the murder rate continues to climb despite the Dallas Police Department waging a campaign to fight violent crime in the city. As of November 28, 222 murders and non-negligent manslaughter cases had been logged, according to the City’s crime analytics dashboard, showing a year-over-year rise of 10.4%.
An officer shortage casts a shadow over DPD’s efforts to effectively fight crime, with only 3,200 sworn-in personnel patrolling Dallas despite a City report recommending a force of approximately 4,000 officers for a city the size of Dallas. Downtown Dallas sees the effects of this lack of resources, seeing significantly higher rates of crime than nearby Fort Worth’s city center, which is monitored by a specialized police unit alongside private security guards.