‘My heart did not rest’: Neighbors discuss double-murder in Marion County

Neighbors discuss Marion Co. double-murder

Crime scene tape still surrounds the house in the Whispering Sands subdivision where the Marion County Sheriff’s Office says a man and a woman were shot dead.

MARION COUNTY, Fla. - Crime scene tape still surrounds the house in the Whispering Sands subdivision where the Marion County Sheriff’s Office says a man and a woman were shot dead.

Neighbors say violence in the neighborhood is getting bad enough that they’re considering moving.

"I didn't sit easy yesterday, "said a woman who asked to be identified only as Cheryl. "My heart did not rest yesterday."

She listed two recent shootings in the area – one following an argument, and one in a drive-by. She says she had to move her bed away from the window pane just to keep safe. Right now, detectives still aren’t sure what led to the murders.

Cheryl and another neighbor, Rose Boyles, both said the people in the house where the killings happened were kind.

"They weren't bad people," said Boyles. "They wasn’t bad, they wasn’t mean, they didn’t steal anything. You know what I'm saying? They were very nice."

Boyles says she’s been housing a man who just recently moved out of that house. She says he went to pick up some of his clothes Sunday morning and walked into a murder scene.

"He was scared," recalled Boyles. "His whole body was shaken. He said he’d never seen dead people before, and the muscles in this body, just the whole body was just jerking and he was crying."

The call about the bodies went in around 11 a.m. Sunday, but right now, Valerie Strong with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office says they aren’t sure when the shooting actually happened.

"Right now, we're just trying to find out who did this to them," said Strong. "And we need the community to come together and call us and let us know if they saw anything."

Detectives have gathered some security footage, checked around a wooded area behind the house, and asked neighbors if they knew anything. So far, they haven’t narrowed down a suspect.

"There's always that missing piece. No matter how much evidence we can collect, sometimes we need that eyewitness or someone that heard something that ties it all together," said Strong. "That's why the community is so very important to solving these crimes."

The Sheriff’s Office says it’s having trouble finding one of the victim’s next of kin. They don’t want to release the victims’ names until they can do that.