Family of 5 found dead at Orlando home in apparent murder-suicide, police say
A family of five, including two children, were found dead at a southeast Orlando home Tuesday in what the Orlando Police Department called an apparent murder-suicide that left neighbors in a state of shock that one described as “sickening sadness.”
The agency said investigators went to the home on Lake District Lane, near Lake Nona, about 1 p.m. to conduct a well-being check. Inside, they found the bodies of five people. The discovery prompted a massive police response to the neighborhood.
OPD spokesperson Andrea Otero in a written statement did not identify those killed or give their ages, saying their relatives still need to be informed.
The brief OPD statement sent to news outlets about 4:40 p.m. did not indicate how they died or what led to the killings. The agency had provided no additional updates by 8 p.m. and said it did not expect to provide any Tuesday night.
Justin Rossilini said he lives across the street from the two-story beige home and didn’t hear anything alarming the past couple of nights.
“I’ve had the past two days off. We’ve been home. I didn’t hear anything,” he told reporters. “I have a feeling it happened Sunday night.”
Rossilini said he saw a cop looking through the window of a car outside the home around 11:30 a.m. Later in the afternoon, he said there were about 35 vehicles on the street where he lives.
He said the family, which moved in “about two months ago,” had a 22-year-old son, who he’d seen about five days ago when getting the mail, as well as two little girls around the ages of 6 and 7.
“They seemed normal,” he said.
Lauren Ruiz, 20, grew up in the neighborhood. She came out to the scene to get closure and more information about what happened.
“When I heard what happened I felt shock, and panic and some confusion,” she said. “I was hoping they got it wrong. This kind of thing never happens here.”
Orange County Commissioner Maribel Gomez Cordero showed up after she heard the news from her son’s friends who play sand volleyball nearby as well as calls from residents who thought there may be a shooter at large.
“It’s important that leaders come out and begin to understand there’s something going on with the mental health of the community… We don’t want this to be repeated,” she said.
Heather Collins, 46, lives nearby and said she knows the family moved in a couple of months ago.
”I have this sickening sadness,” she said. “It’s a nightmare receiving an end like that especially with children.”
There have been several murder-suicides in Central Florida in recent months.
In April, a family friend shot and killed two people before killing himself in an unincorporated Winter Park home, according to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office. The victims were identified as James Calhoun, 42, and Emma Cain, 49, and the killer as 48-year-old Shane Shearer.
In June, police say Carlos Manuel Soto shot and killed his wife, Zuleika Del Carmen Lopez Avila, her mother Mileida Carmen Lopez Avila and her 15-year-old son Victor Araujo Lopez, before killing himself.
Zuleika Lopez Avila had called law enforcement six days earlier, expressing fear over her husband having a weapon in their home. Officers went to the family’s apartment but said they couldn’t find evidence of physical violence and said she denied having been threatened, so no action was taken.
Another alleged murder-suicide took place later that month at The Fountains Resort on International Drive, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said. The shooter and victim were not identified publicly at the time and the agency described the death only as the result of a “domestic incident.”
Tuesday’s grisly discovery also calls to mind one of Central Florida’s most notorious recent homicide cases: The Todt family murders, in which Anthony Todt killed his wife and three children in Celebration.
Authorities found Todt living with the decomposing bodies of 42-year-old Megan Todt and the couple’s children Alek, 13, Tyler, 11, and Zoe, 4, on Jan. 13, 2020, while serving a warrant to arrest him on federal health care fraud charges related to his Connecticut physical therapy business.
Megan Todt and her three children had been dead for “at least a couple weeks” before they were found, according to a medical examiner. Todt, who told jurors he tried and failed to kill himself in a variety of ways, was convicted of first-degree murder in April.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Maribel Gomez Cordero. She is an Orange County commissioner.
