Sheriff: Estranged husband shot wife in Wayne County murder-suicide

GOLDSBORO, North Carolina (WTVD) -- The Wayne County Sheriff's Office says the deaths of two people Sunday are being treated as a murder-suicide.

The investigation began just before 11 p.m. when deputies went to a disturbance call and found 25-year-old Karla Ayde-Garcia Arellano dead of a gunshot wound in the bathroom of a home in the 13-hundred block of Ditchbank Road, Goldsboro. Her cause of death is yet to be determined.

Just before midnight, her estranged husband, 35-year-old Javier Garcia Aguilar, was found slumped over the wheel of a car in the 1300 block of Piney Grove Road, Seven Springs. Deputies said he shot himself.

Arellano's family said the couple's two young daughters, both under 10, were inside their house and heard the first half of the horror unfold.

Before driving out to Piney Grove Road, Aguilar dropped off the girls at his in-laws'.

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"He came here and he dropped the girls off on the porch and he just left, and they were knocking and my dad opened the door and they told us that they were scared, that they heard their mom yell," said Estela Garcia Arellano, Karla's sister.

Karla's parents rushed over to her home to find the young mother dead in the bathroom.

Estela said her sister's death is the end to what was a controlling and often violent relationship.

In September 2016, an incident led to Karla calling police and having a misdemeanor charge of assault on a female filed against her husband.

Aguilar was later found not guilty, but Estela said the incident came with a threat.

"He even told her that night too- he said, 'If you're not with me, you're not gonna be with anyone else,'" she said.

While neighbors seemed to be none the wiser as to what was happening inside the couple's home, her family who is now looking after her children, said Karla had been doing whatever she could to shield her kids.

"She was a great mom, a hard-working mom," said Estela. "Even when her and her husband would have problems, she would always have a smile on her face."