A suspected stalker killed a couple before committing suicide in Redmond of the US' Washington state, police said.
Officers on early Friday morning found a man with a gunshot wound in a house. He died at the scene. A woman was also killed inside the house, and the suspect was located with a "self-inflicted gunshot wound" in the main bedroom, Redmond Police Chief Darrell Lowe was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying.
The woman's mother, who lives at the home, encountered the suspect and somehow managed to escape without injury and called the police, according to Lowe.
The identification of the couple has not been released. The suspect, identified by the Redmond Police Department as Ramin Khodakaramrezaei, 38, had been the subject of a misdemeanour stalking investigation after the female victim filed a no-contact order against him.
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Khodakaramrezaei was a truck driver. He listened to the woman's podcasts. They had met on the app Clubhouse, which allows users to talk over audio chat rooms, according to a report by The Seattle Times.
The victim originally contacted Redmond police in December 2022 and again in January after the suspect's actions intensified. A temporary order of protection was signed on March 3, and a hearing was set to occur on March 17, the report said.
Friday's killings were the "worst possible outcome of a stalking case", Lowe said at a media briefing on Friday afternoon.
