Elderly couple shot to death outside North Richland Hills home in apparent murder-suicide
The North Richland Hills Police Department is investigating a shooting where an elderly couple were found dead outside of their home on Sunday in what’s believed to be a murder-suicide.
Just after 3:30 a.m., North Richland Hills dispatch received a call from an elderly man who said that he had just killed his wife and that he was going to take his own life.
When officers arrived at the scene in the 3700 block of North Hills Court, the man and his wife were found dead lying next to each other in the driveway behind their house, police said in a news release Wednesday.
The man’s wife was identified as Joyce Hartzell Simpson, who was 80 years old, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office. Her cause of death was gunshot wounds of the torso and her death was ruled a homicide, according to the autopsy.
The husband’s name has not yet been released by the medical examiner’s office.
Investigators, including the Crime Scene Search Unit, collected a gun and bullet casings from the scene, police said.
Investigators and the department’s Crimes Victims Unit made family notifications to the next of kin.
This story was originally published May 3, 2023 at 2:37 PM.
