Family of 3 found dead in likely murder-suicide

A family of three, including a young girl, was found dead in what police suspect was a double murder-suicide in a North Side apartment early Monday.

Police were called to the Winding Creek apartments, at 13121 NW Military Highway, for a welfare check at 8:30 a.m. after a relative grew concerned, having not heard from one of the family members since Saturday, San Antonio Police Department public information officer Jennifer Rodriguez said.

Officers forced their way into the apartment, where they found the bodies of an adult male in his early 40s, an adult female in her late 30s and girl under 10 years old with apparent gunshot wounds. Police have not released any of their names.

Rodriguez said preliminary reports suggest that the man shot the woman, who was his wife, and child before turning the gun on himself. Police do not know what led to the shooting or when it occurred.

Police are investigating whether there was a history with domestic violence in the home.

The seemingly quiet apartment complex was awash with law enforcement early Monday as San Antonio police, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and crime scene technicians made their way around the top-floor apartment near the back of the complex. Despite being near the bustling intersection of Northwest Military Highway and Wurzbach Parkway, trees surrounded the complex, shielding drivers on the street from the horrific scene inside the apartment.

San Antonio homicide rates have been on the rise for several years, with more cases in 2022 than any other year in the past three decades. Homicides rose 43.5 percent in 2022 — to 231 recorded homicides last year from 161 in 2021.

Of those homicides, 16 incidents — about 7 percent of homicides — stemmed from domestic incidents.

Fatal family violence incidents have been plaguing Bexar County for the better part of a decade, with increasing numbers illustrating a concerning trend. In 2017, women in Bexar County were killed by intimate partners at the highest rate among Texas’ most populous counties, and by 2020, Bexar County had the second-highest rate behind Tarrant County.

Photos by Kin Man Hui/staff photographer San Antonio police investigate a scene of what preliminary reports suggest was a double murder and suicide at the Winding Creek Apartments off Northwest Military Highway on Monday. A man, woman and child were found shot to death.

Police found a man in his early 40s, a woman in her late 30 and a girl under the age of 10 dead in an apartment.