Couple found dead in Santa Rosa home, police investigating deaths as homicides

A man and woman were found dead in a Santa Rosa home Wednesday and their deaths are being investigated as homicides, police said.

Just before 9 a.m., the couple was discovered at a Bennett Valley home in the 1500 block of Woodlake Drive after a relative requested police check on them, Santa Rosa police Sgt. Chris Mahurin said.

Responding police officers found a man in his 50s and a woman in her 40s, who Mahurin described as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Their names were not released.

They were found in the living room and a gun was discovered nearby, the sergeant said. Each person had a gunshot wound.

Police are investigating the motive behind the deaths, including whether they are the result of a murder-suicide.

Mahurin said there’s no history of calls for police assistance at the home and other details were not immediately available.

There have been 20 homicides in Sonoma County this year, and 12 of them took place in Santa Rosa. That includes Wednesday’s double fatality.

Two previous incidents have been investigated as murder-suicides, most recently one in the 400 block of Meadowgreen Drive on Oct. 12.

The county’s 2022 homicide total eclipses the previous high of 12 homicides in 2017, which had been considered Sonoma County’s deadliest year, according to the California Department of Justice’s annual crime statistics report, which was released in August.

You can reach Staff Writer Colin Atagi at colin.atagi@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @colin_atagi