Coroner Jury Rules Shootings Murder-Suicide
By: Bob Larson
Updated: July 26, 2012
A Peoria County coroner's jury ruled the deaths of a Peoria couple a murder-suicide. Police found the bodies of 31 year old Carlos Hightower and 30 year old Shauna Parks, a Methodist Medical Center nurse, in their home at 2912 N. Mission Road last May. At Thursday's inquest, the coroner's jury ruled Parks died of multiple gunshot wounds and said Hightower committed suicide by shooting himself in the head "after shooting another". Family members told us in May that the couple lived together for several years and had two children together. The kids were not home when the shootings occurred.
