White County deaths deemed murder-suicide

MONTICELLO, Ind. (WISH) - A woman and man found dead in a White County home on Tuesday were victims of a murder-suicide, 24-Hour News news partner the Pharos-Tribune reports.

White County Sheriff Pat Shafer told the newspaper that Michael Bell, 47, shot Heather Taylor, 38, sometime late Monday or early Tuesday in the home they shared.

Shafer said Taylor had talked to a friend Monday night, but when that friend did not hear back from her that evening or the next morning, she called police. Officers went to the home in the 1100 block of Saddlebrook Court in Montecello just after 9:30 p.m. Tuesday.

They found signs of forced entry into the home, and then found Bell and Taylor dead in the bedroom, both with a single gunshot wound, the newspaper reports. The sheriff said the two had been going through a separation.

Investigators spoke with family and friends and that, along with evidence at the scene and autopsy results, led to the determination that it was an apparent murder-suicide, Shafer told the newspaper.