Deputies are investigating what they believe to be a murder-suicide in rural Mountain Home after a man and woman were found fatally shot early Sunday, the Baxter County sheriff said.
Terry Mills, 57, and Sandra Douglas, 47, were found dead from gunshot wounds inside their home off Arkansas 201 in the Pigeon Creek area, deputies said.
Investigators found a suicide note Mills had left behind, and a "firearm and spent casings" were recovered at the scene, Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery said in a statement.
Deputies went to the residence about 12:55 a.m. Sunday after a family member asked them to conduct a welfare check, according to the sheriff’s office. Deputies spoke with Mills for several minutes on the front porch and then left.
At 3:06 a.m. Sunday, the sheriff’s office received another call from a family member, who lives out of state, indicating that they believed there had been a struggle inside the home and that Mills’ girlfriend was dead, according to the sheriff’s office.
Deputies responded a second time to the home and found the bodies of Mills and Douglas, according to the sheriff’s office.
A neighbor told investigators he saw Mills and Douglas between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. Saturday, and later, about 9 p.m., he heard several gunshots, authorities said.
The bodies were taken to the state medical examiner’s office in Little Rock for autopsy, Montgomery said.