Search warrants state 19-year-old Xavier Neil Holton shot and killed his mother, 54-year-old Erica Alsye Holton, and his girlfriend, 19-year-old Aminah Michelle Guy.
Investigators said after killing both women Holton turned the gun on himself. Search warrants state he recently purchased the gun used in the killings.
According to investigators, Holton had known mental health struggles.
Friends and fellow poets gathered Wednesday night to honor Erica Holton. They said she was a pillar of City Soul Open Mic.
Hoping to help her "rest in poetry," many who felt Holton's impact gathered to share memories and honor her life.
"She was easy to talk to, she was a hug, she was an answer when you didn't have one, like having a mother figure when you didn't have a mother figure," Joseph Churchwell said about Holton on Wednesday night ahead of the open mic.
Cary police found the three bodies around 3 p.m. Monday at a home on Smokemont Drive in the Linville Ridge neighborhood.
Guy and Xavier Holton had been in a relationship for about a year. The pair won scholarship money to attend North Carolina Central University.
Aminah's mother told ABC11 that she was in shock after finding out about her daughter's death.
"(I am) probably crying every 10-15 minutes or so," Angela Guy told ABC11.