BAY MINETTE, Ala. (WALA) - An ongoing domestic dispute between a husband and wife ended in an apparent murder-suicide in Bay Minette on Sunday, according to police.
When officers made it to the Driftwood Convenience store on Highway 59 around 8:30 a.m., they were too late to save the life of Linda Milstid, the clerk who pushed the panic alarm minutes earlier.
Bay Minette Police Chief Michael Rowland said 41-year-old Mark Milstid had gone to his wife's job armed with a shotgun.
"When the officers arrived they discovered two victims, two gunshot victims. The clerk, who was a female, and the male subject who we later identified as her husband," Police Chief Michael Rowland said.
Rowland said, through their preliminary investigation, the department called the incident a murder-suicide stemming from problems at home between Linda and Mark Milstid. Rowland said surveillance video, which captured the entire tragic event, confirms the preliminary investigation.
Police said Linda Milstid was in the process of filing for divorce.
"He came into the store with a shotgun and fired several rounds, striking her and also killed himself," Rowland said.
Linda Milstid, 41, was found dead behind the counter inside the store. She had been shot twice with the shotgun. Mark Milstid was also behind the counter, and police initially thought he was dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.
Officers went outside and called for backup and medical personnel.
That's when, Rowland said, the injured man staggered outside and collapsed in the parking lot. Mark Milstid died at the hospital.
Chief Rowland said before Milstid went to his wife's job in Bay Minette he set fire to his own mobile home in Perdido. When fire fighters arrived on that scene, the home on Coleman Road was fully engulfed in flames.
"You know it's a tragic thing and we always are concerned about domestic issues and domestic violence. This is going to be a pretty extensive investigation into the circumstances of this case, but we're satisfied at this particular point that it is a homicide suicide," the chief said.
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