A Roswell family disintegrated in violence and neighbors feared for their safety as an apparent murder-suicide claimed the lives of a little boy and a man believed to be his father.
Police suspect the father killed his son.
Friday morning they discovered two bodies, believed to be 4-year-old Jesus Dominguez and his father, Carlos Alberto Dominguez, about a half mile from the apartment where the boy lived.
His mother, Sandra Rivera Ruiz, was hospitalized in critical condition Friday after being severely beaten the day before. Dominguez is suspected of beating her and taking Jesus.
“It appears to be a murder-suicide,” said Roswell police spokeswoman Lisa Holland after the bodies were found.
She said the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office would have to confirm the identities. “However, we believe that these persons are the missing father and son,” she later said in a statement.
The grisly discoveries ended a search that began when Jesus was reported missing Thursday. Ruiz’s sister, Esmeralda Rivera, found someone who speaks English to call 911 when she found Ruiz unconscious , Channel 2 Action News reported.
“She is bleeding in bed,” the caller told emergency dispatchers. “She came in bleeding. Somebody hit her.”
The caller told the emergency operator that Ruiz seemed to indicate her husband had beaten her.
“She thinks it’s her husband,” the man said. “ … Son is not here, either.”
Officers who arrived about 4:30 p.m. at a home in the 200 block of Old Holcomb Bridge Way in Roswell found Ruiz with severe injuries. “From appearances, it was a very brutal beating,” Holland said.
Ruiz was taken to North Fulton Hospital, Holland said, but police could not find Jesus.
Early Friday, alerts about the missing boy were posted on message boards over metro Atlanta interstates, and the GBI and rangers from the state Department of Natural Resources joined in the search.
The bodies were discovered about 10:15 a.m. by two Roswell police officers, Holland said.
Police were eager to find the boy alive, Holland said.
“It’s sad that we didn’t.”
She said the family had only lived in the area about two months, and police had never been called to the apartment.
No criminal history of Dominguez was found, police said.
Ruiz’s two other children, a 5-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy, were at school when their mother was attacked, Holland said. Police said they are now with relatives.
Holland said the area where the bodies were found was “off the beaten path.”
“There’s pathways that connect all these (apartment) complexes together and so (Carlos Dominguez) probably is familiar with the area, being that he lived so close,” Holland said.
Roswell police cordoned off the Aspen Point apartment complex off Old Holcomb Bridge Road and remained on the crime scene hours after the bodies were discovered.
The incident shook neighbors, who said they feared for their safety in an area they say is troubled by crime.
“I’m scared,” said Susan Goddard, who lived next door to the family at the nearby Oaks at Holcomb Bridge apartment complex. “I’m at home. I should feel safe.”
Goddard said she didn’t know the family well and saw little indication it would become consumed by violence.
“You couldn’t see it,” she said. “I thought they were happy.”
Neighbor Carmen Martinez said the boy’s mother mentioned family problems several months ago but offered no specifics.
Martinez, who said she witnessed a robbery in the neighborhood last September, said she doesn’t feel safe.
As school let out Friday afternoon, dozens of children arrived home to the apartment complex.
Resident Dulce Torres said she awoke Friday to news crews and police swarming the apartments. Her children thought it was a television show.
“For our kids, we have to say, `oh, yes, it’s a TV show,’ ” Torres said.
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