The Richmond Hill Police Department released the names Wednesday afternoon of a mother and son found dead Monday in a Mainstreet subdivision home and say evidence points to a murder-suicide.
The victims are Michael Cyrus Green, 8, and his mother, 40-year-old Ivette Christine Greene. Both died of apparent gunshot wounds, RHPD said in a press release, and the woman left a note at the scene.
According to police, the bodies were discovered by the father, Mike Greene, who also lives at the home on 744 Bristol Way. Greene told investigators he left for work around 6 a.m. and got a text from his wife to return home. When he got back to the house he found the two bodies and called police.
The case is being investigated by RHPD and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Police said the mother was estranged from her immediate family, who live outside the U.S. and police were still trying to notify family members late Wednesday.
The boy had previously been enrolled in Bryan County Schools, where he attended kindergarten and half of his first-grade year, according to Bryan County Board of Education Chairman Eddie Warren.
Warren said the boy left the school system in January.
“By our records, the boy was withdrawn January 2013 and moved out of state,” he said.
Some reports have said the family was military, but RHPD has not confirmed that.
If the deaths were the result of a murder-suicide, it would be the third in the county since 2010.
In May of that year, Jeffrey Minor, 49, shot his wife, Gail Minor, 50, at their home on Highway 144 in South Bryan, then fired shots at a neighboring house before setting fire to his home and shooting himself.
Sheriff Clyde Smith said at the time that authorities didn’t know what caused Minor to shoot himself.
More recently, Bryan County News columnist Shirley Davis Heirs, a well-known Richmond Hill native, was shot and killed by her boyfriend, Richard Earl Bates, who then killed himself in August 2011 at the couple’s home on Mimosa Street.
Police found no motive for that shooting.