By Caitlin Gibson, Tuesday, May , 9:59 PM
Just before 6 a.m. Tuesday, as residents in his quiet Loudoun County neighborhood were beginning to stir, 64-year-old Larry E. Perry called 911 and reported a shooting.
After he hung up the phone, Perry, a devoted husband, father and grandfather, walked outside near the garage and shot himself, authorities said.
Inside the home, his longtime wife, Mercedes “Kaye” Perry, 61, already was dead.
Loudoun sheriff’s spokesman Kraig Troxell said investigators think the murder-suicide was sparked by financial concerns and Kaye Perry’s “serious health issues,” but Troxell did not elaborate. The couple’s three grown daughters, friends and neighbors were left reeling by the seemingly inexplicable, sudden act of violence.
“Our parents were kind and loving people, and utterly and unfailingly devoted to their children and grandchild,” the Perrys’ daughters said Tuesday in a statement. “We are struggling to understand what happened early this morning and there is still much that is unclear. What is not unclear is our unconditional love for our parents. The family is struggling to come to terms with the loss we suffered.”
Troxell said deputies arrived at the home in the 800 block of South Birch Street in Sterling Park minutes after the 911 call. Kaye Perry’s elderly mother, who also lived at the house, was inside and unharmed, Troxell said.
Robert Samuel, 89, a longtime neighbor, said he learned of the tragedy when he came downstairs Tuesday morning and found police cars lining the quiet suburban street and yellow police tape surrounding the Perrys’ white, two-story house.
Samuel said he has lived next door to Larry and Kaye Perry for more than 25 years and saw them often. He described them as kind, friendly neighbors.
“Not long ago, the last time I saw Kaye, she said, ‘I’m going to have you over to eat,’ ” he said. “I couldn’t tell anything was wrong. Something happens like this, it’s just a tragedy.”
Samuel said the couple’s daughters live nearby and visited frequently. The Perrys also had a young granddaughter, he said, nodding toward a plastic child’s swing that hung from a branch of a large tree in the tidy front yard.
Samuel said he thought Kaye Perry had some health problems but did not know any details.
“Sometimes she didn’t seem quite right, but I didn’t know what was wrong or how bad it might be,” he said.
Ray Bowes, owner of the Shirlington Texaco service station in Arlington, said he knew Larry Perry for more than 20 years as an employee and a friend. He described Perry, who worked at the station for 24 years as a bookkeeper and service manager, as reliable and hardworking.
“The employees liked him, the customers liked him,” Bowes said. “Larry was a good guy, there was no question about that.”
Bowes said the Perry family was close and that he often saw Kaye and their daughters around the station. The two families socialized over the years, he said, and the Perrys’ oldest daughter worked at the service station as a bookkeeper for a short time.
He recalled that Kaye Perry had frequently suffered from crippling migraines, though he said he didn’t know the details of her health problems.
“Going back over the years, she used to have severe headaches, to the point that she would be in bed for days,” Bowes said.
Bowes said Larry Perry left the service station about 12 years ago, but they kept in touch. They last spoke several months ago.
“He was very upbeat,” Bowes said. “I knew that Kaye was sick, I knew his mother-in-law was staying there, but Larry was the type of person who did not complain. He did what he had to do — he did not back away from anything.
“I asked him how Kaye was doing,” Bowes recalled, “and his only comment was that she has her good days and her bad days.”
Bowes said he was stunned by the circumstances of their deaths.
“I’m just shocked that he would do this,” he said. “It had to be something more than what I know. He just wasn’t that kind of person. . . . They’re a good family. They’re good people.”
Staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.
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