A gruesome discovery in a north Phoenix neighborhood Sunday morning left two dead in what police suspect is a murder-suicide. Phoenix officers, who were called to a domestic violence incident near Central Avenue and Union Hills Drive at around 8:45 a.m., found 70-year-old Ila Washington and 59-year-old Darryle Mooney dead from gunshot wounds inside the home.
Having responded to harrowing claims of a man saying he killed his girlfriend—law enforcement officials told ABC 15 that Mooney is believed to have shot Washington before turning the weapon on himself. Despite the police's attempt to defuse the situation, arriving at a silent home, closed off and impenetrable, the voices of urgency from the officers blared from their loudspeakers, only to be met with the stillness of the aftermath.
Jose Perez expressed to AZ Family, “It’s scary cause it’s a peaceful neighborhood, so you wouldn’t think it would happen. But I guess it could happen anywhere." Another local, Nicole Anderson, witnessing the events unfold claimed, "My mind did kind of go to, unfortunately, a domestic situation, especially when it just kind of seemed to escalate a little bit over time. I was like, ‘This isn’t going to be good’.”
Through a search warrant, detectives entered the home where the chilling scene lay before them, finding Washington and Mooney shot, confirming the tragic end to what appears to have been a domestic dispute turned deadly.
