2 die in murder-suicide in south Fort Worth, police say; 1 woman injured
A man is suspected of opening fire on two women inside of his home in south Fort Worth early Wednesday morning, killing one of them, before turning the gun on himself, according to authorities.
He initially survived the gunshot wound to his upper torso and head but later died in a hospital. He was identified by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner as 41-year-old Cory Lashaun James.
The woman who was killed was Blanca Estela Rodriguez, 41, according to the medical examiner. Rodriguez and James both lived in the home in the 900 block of East Davis Avenue where the shooting occurred, the medical examiner reported.
Rodriguez was pronounced dead inside the home, police said. The other woman, who was able to get to a nearby home to call 911 about 6 a.m., was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive.
The initial call came in to police as a suicide attempt. A caller said that a man had shot himself, according to a police call log.
Several police officers responded to the crime scene Wednesday morning, blocking off the street with yellow tape and walking in and out of the home wearing white coverall suits. A woman could be seen taking a stretcher out of a van that backed into the garage and later drove away.
The relationship between the three people involved isn’t known at this time, Fort Worth police spokesman Buddy Calzada said while standing on the street near the home. But homicide detectives are investigating the shooting as a murder-suicide.
“At this time we’re not looking for anybody else and we want to note the general public is not – we don’t feel they’re in any danger at this point,” Calzada said.
He said over the phone in the early afternoon he had no further updates but would provide them when they become available. “We just kind of have to sit and wait,” he said.
Residents of East Davis Avenue told the Star-Telegram they heard gunshots in the early morning hours Wednesday but didn’t think much of it, as it’s a familiar sound in the neighborhood. The shooting with two victims came the morning after Fort Worth’s spiking homicide rate became a brief topic during the first presidential debate.
Homicides increased in the first six months of 2020 compared to the same time period last year, according to police. While there were 71 homicides last year, data shows, there were 76 as of Sept. 30 this year.
The neighbors, as they stood in front lawns and looked toward the crime scene, described an older woman who has lived inside the home who would often be outside sweeping, her garage door open. Charleston Baston, 60, said he thought she stayed with her two sons, both of them likely in their early 20s. He doesn’t know the family too well.
“You get used to it,” Baston said of violence in his neighborhood. “It’s like a trend. When I was growing up, we didn’t have stuff like this here.”
Victor Velazquez, 26, lives with his three young daughters, including a 9-month-old, a few homes away from the site of the shooting. He said he heard two clear gunshots around 3 a.m., shrugged it off and went back to sleep.
As he learned of the homicide and where it happened later in the morning, Velazquez recounted a conversation he had with the woman who lived in the home on Sunday when he was searching for his apparently stolen quad bike. He had walked up the block after noticing it was missing, stopping to speak with her as she stood outside of her open garage, he said. Though she was having an argument with her son, he said, she was worried about his bike.
She told him she didn’t know where it was, and even asked her son if he had seen it. “She was like, ‘Yeah, this neighborhood, man — they’re always just doing this dumb stuff,’” Velazquez said.
“She was really concerned and she really wanted a change,” he added.
Jason Williams, 32, drove to East Davis Avenue on Wednesday morning and parked his car. Having grown up on the South Side, he said he has known the older woman for almost 20 years and gets his hair cut by one of the men who lived in the home. A small group of men stood by Williams in the street, all of them indicating the man was also their barber.
“It’s crazy,” Williams said. “Every time you turn on the news, or look at Facebook, there’s something going on.”
Police cleared the scene around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. The main front door of the house in the 900 block was open, with an exterior glass door closed, but no one responded to the doorbell or knocking.
This story was originally published September 30, 2020 at 9:34 AM.
