COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. — Not one scene but two as the Collier County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) investigated an apparent murder-suicide that started with a woman found dead and ended with SWAT swarming a home in Golden Gate.
Wednesday, At 12:44 p.m., CCSO responded to a death investigation where a woman's body was found in a shopping center on the 2740 block of Bayshore Drive in East Naples.
However, it didn't stop there.
Later that afternoon, SWAT and CCSO deputies were at a home on 27th Street Southwest in Golden Gate.
Many people on the scene knew the victim and the suspect, and said the two frequented the area. Witnesses told Fox 4's Briana Brownlee that they heard multiple gunshots ring out that morning.
According to CCSO, the suspect and victim knew each other and the incident is isolated.
The female victim was dead on the scene and a male suspect fled the scene, leading CCSO deputies to Golden Gate Estates. Several CCSO units, including SWAT, K9 and Aviation, responded to the area.
“We already knew that somebody shot somebody in East Naples and killed them and we knew the suspect could possibly be on this street," said Catherine Griffin, a neighbor.
And Griffin's suspicion was spot on. A spokeswoman with CCSO confirmed the man who shot and killed a woman at the shopping plaza in Naples was the same man who took off and barricaded himself in the Golden Gate neighborhood.
The suspect died by suicide before deputies and SWAT could get him to surrender.
Griffin's teenage son came across the scene on his way to a lacrosse game.
“When he drove down there to check it out, he said he spotted someone laying in the field with their arms crossed over their body and their legs crossed," Griffin said.
All of this played out just down the street from where Griffin lives.
“I don’t know, I’m kind of not thinking that clearly right now," she said.
At the first scene where the woman was found dead in the shopping center, her family was there. Not ready to speak publicly, they said they are still trying to process what happened.
