WHITEHALL – Police in Whitehall say an incident that left two men dead Monday was a murder-suicide involving neighbors in an apartment building.
Detectives say it appears that Roderick Moon shot Michael Haycock and then turned the gun on himself after barricading himself inside the bathroom of a nearby apartment, Sgt. Jon Earl of the Whitehall Police Department said.
Officers responding to a report of shots fired at the apartment building at 895 Bernhard Road at 1:08 p.m. found numerous shell casings outside the building ant went inside where they found the doors of two apartments open and Haycock inside one of them, suffering from a fatal gunshot wound.
Moon, 36, barricaded himself inside a nearby apartment and officers found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound when they forced their way into the apartment, Earl said.
Two firearms were found at the scene.
“This is a tragic loss of life that did not have to happen,” said police Chief Dan Kelso, who encouraged anyone with suicidal thoughts or feelings to contact police or the suicide hotline at 800-273-8255.
Earl says the two men were known to police and “had prior issues with each other.”