Captain Homer Flores leads the Starr County District Attorney’s Office Violent Crimes Unit.
On Sunday morning he was called-in to investigate a shooting that he said turned out to be a murder-suicide.
"In Roma it's not a common occurrence that family violence escalates up to a death," Flores said.
It's the first homicide in the City of Roma.
"We learned it was a husband and wife,” Flores said. “The gentleman killed his wife and then took the gun on himself."
Flores said the wife was 43-year-old Azalia Barrera.
The alleged triggerman and husband was 59-year-old Ovaldo Barrera.
Flores said the murder-suicide happened at a home on Eagle Street at about 8:30 a.m.
Neighbors said the couple's children, a 23-year-old son and 20-year-old daughter, were inside the home at time of the shooting.
They said it was them who found their parents dead.
"It sounded like a firecracker, that's what their daughter told me,” Ana Maria Bernal, a neighbor said. “But none of us would've ever guessed it was a gun."
Bernal has known the couple for years and rents one of several properties the couple owns.
Bernal showed Action 4 News a picture where she and her daughter posed with the couple during the couple's 25th wedding anniversary, about two years ago.
Bernal said there were never any apparent problems between the couple.
"I don’t understand it,” Bernal said. “They loved each other and they were always together - I even called them lovebirds. How did it get to this point!"
Captain Flores said the couple's marriage was crumbling and Azalia Bernal wanted out of the marriage, but her husband did not.
Bernal said she can't understand why the tragedy happened.
"We’re all in shock,” she said.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forKGBT