Police Arrive In Time To Hear Gunshots

"READING, PA — Reading police are investigating an apparent murder-suicide at 139 North Front Street, investigators said Saturday.

"Officials withheld the names of the two victims while they tried to make contact with their next of kin.

"They said only that they were a male and a female who both died of apparent gunshot wounds.

"Officers taped off a portion of the block Saturday night as scores of onlookers crowded against the crime-scene tape to watch investigators, police officers and members of the Berks County coroner's office go in and out of the row house.

"Within minutes after police were called to the scene, the block was teeming with officers, some wearing protective vests and armed with rifles.

"Sgt. John M. Solecki of the city police criminal investigations division gave this account:

"Officers were called to the home just before 8 p.m. for reports of a possible homicide. When they arrived, officers heard shots coming from inside the home.

"`Upon hearing the gunshot, the officers entered immediately,` Solecki said.

"They found the female dead on the first floor and the man—dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot—upstairs. No one else was in the home.

"Officers believe the man shot the woman and later shot himself as officers arrived.

"Police are still investigating when the first killing happened and the relationship between the two people."

Source: Reading Eagle...