2 slain on west side died of gunshot wounds to head
As Robert Christopher was watering his flowers Thursday afternoon, he looked up and saw his neighbor running toward him.
He was hysterical, Christopher said. The people in the yellow house down the street were dead.
"I didn't know whether to believe him or not, to tell the truth," he said.
Still, he followed, running down Soaring Eagle Court, the west-side street where he has lived with his family for the past two years. He pressed his face against the front window of the familiar house.
That's when he saw it.
A man, sprawled facedown by the front door. The neighbor told Christopher he had gone inside and that a woman lay dead on the kitchen floor.
"I'm like: 'Get away, there could still be somebody in there,'" Christopher said before running home and telling his wife, who called police.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to a call of a person possibly shot in the 3500 block of Soaring Eagle Court, near 34th Street and I-74, around 4 p.m., according to IMPD officer Jim Gillespie.
When officers arrived, they were able to look in the front window and see two bodies, he said. They found the door ajar and went in to help, but the victims, 39-year-old Victoria Valdez and 31-year-old Vincent Grant, were pronounced dead at the scene.
Deputy Coroner Alfie Ballew said Friday afternoon that both victims died of gunshot wounds to the head. Their deaths have been ruled homicides.
As of Friday afternoon, police had not released information on a suspect.
As family and friends arrived on the scene, neighbors quickly wrapped around them, bringing lawn chairs and ice water as they mourned near the crime scene tape.
Christopher said the neighborhood is usually very quiet and calm. Kids run around and play outside. There's not much traffic. Definitely no shootings, he said, so seeing a dozen police vehicles outside his home was unsettling.
"It's a very quiet, nice cul-de-sac," Christopher said. "It's freaky. In the middle of the day, something like this happens."
Call IndyStar reporter Holly Hays at (317) 444-6156. Follow her on Twitter: @hollyvhays.
