Villages in shock as father and son are shot dead in two attacks just six miles apart
A FATHER and son were killed within minutes of each other in a brutal double shooting which shocked two quiet villages.
The body of Josh Dunmore, 32, was found at a house in an upmarket newbuild estate in Bluntisham, Cambridgeshire, after reports of shots.
Half an hour later his father Gary, 57, was found dead at his flat after more shots were heard in another sought-after street in Sutton, six miles away.
Cambridgeshire Police say there was a ‘domestic element’ to the killings on Wednesday evening and that a custody battle was an ‘active line of inquiry’.
Yesterday a woman aged 33, a man of 27 and a man aged 66 were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.
The younger pair were detained at a hotel near Cambridge in the early hours and the older man was held in a dramatic capture operation on the M5 near Droitwich, Worcestershire, over 100 miles away where officers used a stinger device to stop a white
Peugeot. A shotgun was reportedly found.
Chief Superintendent Jon Hutchinson said: ‘At this stage we’re not looking for any further people in relation’ to the incident. Once we had identified that family relationship, it became quite apparent why this attack may have happened and this is clearly a targeted and isolated attack.’
He added: ‘A line of inquiry that we’re focusing on is that those people who are in custody are known to the deceased and have had recent contact with them.’
The two people arrested at the hotel were ‘from the local area but we’re trying to identify where they have been staying in recent days’, he said, adding that forensic work was going on to establish if the same weapon was used at both locations, along with an investigation into whether the firearm that was found had been legally owned.
Detective Inspector Mark Butler of the major crime unit added: ‘There is no wider risk to the general public.
A trampoline stood in the back garden of Josh’s redbrick house yesterday and a white van was parked outside. Flowers were also left there.
Neighbours were shocked by the two violent deaths in leafy streets where family homes sell for more than £500,000. Designer Sarah Lown, 38, who lives near the house split into two flats where twicemarried builder Gary Dunmore lived, heard three loud bangs just after 9pm on Wednesday.
‘I thought something had blown over,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think anything crazy had happened. Then I heard two more.’ Gordon Murray, 62, who lives opposite, said: ‘There was a lot of shouting. Then I saw armed police.’
Residents in Bluntisham were ordered to stay indoors by officers as a helicopter circled overhead.
‘Heard three loud bangs’
‘You’d smile when you saw him’
Retail worker Sharon Coulson, 58, said the village was ‘a nice place to live, nice country walks, friendly, everyone says hello’.
Det Insp Butler said: ‘There will be an increased police presence in the areas concerned today and officers and crime officers will be at the scenes.’
The younger victim, also a builder, trained at St Ives Boxing Club. He was the ‘life and spirit of the club’ according to a 23-yearold woman who laid flowers near his house yesterday. ‘You’d smile when you saw him – he was always cracking jokes,’ she said.
And a close friend told the Mail: ‘He was a very caring person.’
Post-mortem examinations will take place in the coming days.