Man kills wife, then self on son's 9th birthday

6/3/2009, 5:39 p.m. CDT The Associated Press

(AP) — FOREST HILL, La. - A Rapides Parish constable shot and killed his wife and then committed suicide in his wife's store, leaving their son orphaned on his ninth birthday, authorities said Wednesday.

A customer found the bodies of James Anthony Carroll, 38, and his 26-year-old wife, Rebecca Lynn Carroll, in Becca's Bait-N-Beer on Tuesday morning, the Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office said.

James Carroll was a constable in Justice of the Peace Ward 4 and the son of Forest Hill Police Chief Garland "Bear" Carroll.