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Eleven-Year-Old New Jersey Boy Finds Parents Dead In Alleged Murder-Suicide

By Jason Fletcher
Published on: 14:26 PST, Mar 20, 2016

An 11-year-old New Jersey boy returned home to find both of his parents dead inside their Bergenfield home on Saturday morning. According to CBS News, Bergen County prosecutors suspect a murder-suicide, but there aren’t a whole lot of details surrounding exactly what happened.

The boy returned home to his New Jersey home to find his parents not breathing. The 11-year-old told a neighbor that his parents weren’t breathing, and the neighbor called Bergen County Police at around 10:20 a.m. ET on Saturday morning. When they arrived, they surrounded the home and found 36-year-old Annette Torres in an upstairs bedroom and 44-year-old Mark Morris in the basement.

CBS New York spoke to a neighbor on West Clinton Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, who said she had no idea anything had happened.

“I left my house around 9:30, I didn’t know anything about it,” she said.

The deaths will be investigated as a “domestic violence-based murder-suicide” according to acting Bergen County, New Jersey, prosecutor Gurbir Grewal.

“Yeah, they are usually quiet, they hadn’t any bad thing (sic), I didn’t see anything outside, but they are living goodly, friendly, everything,” said one Bergenfield resident.

Grewal told reporters at the scene that Morris died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and that a preliminary investigation seemed to show that he had killed Torres prior to taking his own life.

“At this point, we believe that the male in the basement died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the had,” said Grewal.

The woman worked at a local New Jersey Dollar Tree, and her co-workers became concerned when she didn’t show up for work and didn’t answer her cell phone.

According to Bergen County Police, there was a history of domestic violence involving Morris and Torres, but the details of those incidents have yet to be released. Morris is the father to three other children, according to Heavy.com, but it is not known if Torres is the mother of those children. It’s also not clear if they lived in New Jersey with the couple.

One of Morris’ daughters posted a message to Facebook on Saturday.

“R.I.P Daddy???????????? Can’t Believe My Eyes And Ears Right Now???????? I Will Miss Them Days When You Would Wake Up Early And Make Breakfast For Us And Then Say Get Ready To Go To The Mall. Most Of All I Will Miss Our Deep Conversations. You Were One Of The Few People That I Could Pour My Heart Out To. My Heart Is Beating Way Too fast Right Now And I’m Honestly Still In Disbelief. You Will Always Be In My Heart ? Thank You For Giving Me Life. I Feel Honored And Blessed To Be Your First Born. OMG This Can’t Be Happening???????????????????????? Somebody Please Call My Phone And Tell Me They Got Him Mixed Up With Somebody Else….NOOOOOOO NOT MY DAD MAN, PLEASE GOD…. TALK TO ME ALREADY”

The boy was placed into custody of welfare officials in New Jersey.

Bergenfield is located in northern New Jersey about 20 miles away from New York City. The borough is home to about 26,000 residents.

The Bergen Dispatch reports that Morris has owned the home in Bergenfield, New Jersey, since 2010. The Bergen Record referred to Morris and Torres as “partners” in their coverage of the story.

[Photo via North Jersey News/Twitter]

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