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Husband, Wife Killed In West Boylston Shooting

WEST BOYLSTON (CBS) - A husband and wife are dead after a shooting in an industrial area parking lot Monday afternoon.

Hartwell Street features a combination of homes and businesses. What it does not ordinarily feature is the kind of thing that happened Monday afternoon in the back corner of a parking lot near a storage trailer.

It was just after 2:30 p.m. when West Boylston Police were summoned to the rear of the vacant industrial building amid reports of shots fired.

"You don't expect really much of any of this to happen in our neighborhood," said Kate Simmarano, who lives nearby.

But there it was. A husband and wife in their 70s inside a Nissan Altima both suffering from gunshot wounds. One pronounced dead at the scene, the other dying later at the hospital.

West Boylston shooting
A couple was found dead inside this car in West Boylston (WBZ-TV)

"It's such a crazy world, you don't know what to expect anymore," said Jerry Milliard, another neighbor.

But as some investigators worked in the parking lot, others went to the couple's nearby home.

"We have two actives scenes. This scene here and also a scene at a residence where we do know that some notes have been left," said Worcester District Attorney Joe Early Jr.

Those notes apparently pertain to the couple's death, but the district attorney declined to give any specifics, on what appears to have all the earmarks of a planned murder-suicide -- not some random crime.

"If it was something like that it would make me feel a little bit better, it's still extremely sad," Simmarano said.

Police spent four hours at the shooting scene, a spectacle this small town is not accustomed to.

"It hurts my heart quite a bit," Simmarano said.

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