Published: Friday, February 04, 2011, 8:37 PM Updated: Friday, February 04, 2011, 9:33 PM
By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian
Portland police identified the man and woman found dead from gunshot wounds in a Northeast Portland apartment Friday morning as Heather Elaine Rogers, 21, and Larry Vernard Bell, 48.
Detectives said Bell shot Rogers, his girlfriend, and then turned the gun on himself. Both died from single gunshot wounds. A firearm was found at that scene of the murder-suicide.
The couple worked together at a Portland-area adult entertainment establishment, police said. They did not identify it.
Police were called to the Columbia Ridge Apartments at 15810 Northeast Sandy Blvd. at 3:18 a.m. on a report of two people shot in apartment No. 1. A man who lives in an apartment complex was startled awake by two loud bangs. Javier Coyt, who lives in a ground floor unit at 15920 N.E. Sandy Blvd. in the Columbia Ridge Apartments, thought they were fireworks. "I went back to sleep," he said. He found out later, after police were called to the scene, that they were gunshots in the unit next door, he said.
Another resident called 9-1-1 just before 3:20 a.m. When police arrived they taped off the area and heard what they thought were more gunshots inside the apartment, said Sgt. Pete Simpson, spokesman for Portland police. Members of the Special Emergency Reaction Team and hostage negotiators entered the apartment around 5 a.m. and found a dead man and woman inside, Simpson said. Coyt said the man lived alone in the unit and that his girlfriend often came to visit. Coyt said he heard them fighting one time months ago but otherwise he said hadn't heard any disturbances in the apartment.
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