TOWN OF ROYALTON — Two people are dead in what police say appears to be a murder suicide that happened early Tuesday in Waupaca County.
The Waupaca County Sheriff’s Department was called just after 8 a.m. to a report of a single vehicle rollover crash at the intersection of North Shore Road and Hwy. 110 in the town of Royalton. The caller reported the vehicle in the ditch was running and the wheels were spinning, and two people were inside who appeared to be unconscious, according to a news release.
Emergency responders found a 32 year old woman and her 51 year old husband dead inside the vehicle. Both victims, who were estranged, appear to have died of gunshot wounds, police said.
Further investigation uncovered a surveillance film of a supper club across the street that showed the man pulling into the supper club parking lot shortly before 8 a.m. in another vehicle. He parked that vehicle, then got into the passenger side of a vehicle driven by his wife, who had arrived a few minutes later.
Police say the crash appears to have happened immediately after the couple left the supper club parking lot. Officers found an empty handgun holster left behind in the husband’s vehicle.
An initial investigation suggests that the man had shot his wife multiple times before shooting himself, according to a Waupaca County Sheriff’s Department news release. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
The woman had been residing with relatives at a rural Manawa address, while her husband had been residing at the couple’s rural Weyauwega residence.
Names are being withheld pending notification of relatives.
