2-year-old OK after murder-suicide

COLUMBUS – Police say a two-year-old child was found unhurt inside a Far West Side apartment following an apparent murder-suicide Wednesday afternoon.

Quantain Tate, 34, apparently shot a former girlfriend, Mariah Carpenter, 24, in the apartment in the Hidden Creek complex on Timberwood Drive North, Homicide Unit second shift supervisor Sgt. Stanley Latta said.

A caller to Columbus police dispatchers at approximately 5:21 p.m. asked for officers to respond to the area because man who had a prior domestic relationship with the victim was in the apartment, Latta said

The first responding patrol officers found Tate and Carpenter, apparently lifeless, and Franklin Township medics pronounced both dead at the scene, he said.

The couple’s two-year-old was present in the apartment but was not injured, Latta said.

Investigators are still trying to determine the motive for the incident but Latta says it appears that Tate shot Carpenter and then took his own life.

This is the 52nd homicide of 2018 in Columbus.