Police say 4 men found fatally shot at northeast Texas house; no details on suspects, circumstances

10/10/2013
ASSOCIATED PRESS

PARIS, Texas — Emergency personnel responding to a 911 call found four men who had been shot to death at a house in northeast Texas, police said today.

The four victims were found in a front room of the Paris home, each with gunshot wounds, police Chief Bob Hundley Jr., said. Investigators have ruled out murder-suicide and characterized the killings as a quadruple homicide, Hundley said in a statement.

“I’ve been a police officer here for 39 years. I can’t recall any multiple homicides like this that we’ve had here in Paris,” Hundley said at a news conference today.

Autopsies have been ordered, Hundley said. He identified three of the dead as men from Paris: Romello Dewain Steward, 18; Devante Larry Atkins, 21; and Brijonne Rashad Woods, 24. The other victim was Billy Charles Carey, 32, of Garland.

One of the three Paris residents lived at the home, said police Capt. Danny Huff.

A woman called 911 shortly before 11:30 p.m. Wednesday to report “someone bleeding,” Hundley said. Police have not identified any witnesses to the slayings.

In a recording of that call, the woman tells the dispatcher she doesn’t know what happened but that “it sounds like somebody said that somebody got shot.” She says emergency personnel should hurry.

The woman was at the residence when authorities arrived and has been interviewed by police, said Officer Curtis Garrett, a department spokesman. The woman, whom Garrett did not identify, does not live at the house.

“I think she just found the scene,” he said.

Two other men who had been at the house Wednesday night were apprehended, Hundley said. One was questioned and released and the other was arrested on unrelated charges, Hundley said. Their names and other details have not been released.

Paris is a city of about 25,000 residents near the Oklahoma border, about 100 miles northeast of Dallas.