Waterloo, IA: UPDATE: Bodies of two found dead in Waterloo apartment identified

By JEFF REINITZ, jeff.reinitz@wcfcourier.com | Posted: Saturday, March 27, 2010 9:00 pm


WATERLOO - Waterloo police are investigating the deaths of two people who were found in an apartment Friday night.
Officers and paramedics were called to a downstairs apartment at 1109 Sycamore St. at 8:38 p.m. and found the bodies of a man and a woman inside, according to authorities.
The victims in the incident have been identified as Machelle Lynn Nichols-West, 46,and Gregory Charles West, 55, both of 1109 Sycamore Apt A, Waterloo.
Waterloo police report the incident is believed to be a murder-suicide, but the investigation is ongoing. Autopsies have been scheduled with the State Medical Examiner's Office Sunday.
Neighbors said the couple hadn't been seen for days.
A woman who lives next door said she heard screaming from a person who was apparently the daughter of the female victim.
The daughter was yelling "he killed her," the neighbor said.
Scene described
Courtney Mazur, another neighbor who lived upstairs for about three weeks, was home Friday night when her neighbor's daughter came to her door frantic and seeking help because she hadn't seen her mother for some time.
A man who was with the daughter was trying to force his way into the apartment to see if they were all right, Mazur said. He ran at the door, bashing his shoulder against it and broke the door open on the third try, she said.
Mazur said the female resident was seated in a chair with what appeared to be a gunshot wound. The male resident was on the bed - a simple mattress and box spring on the floor - near a shotgun. He had a massive wound to the head, she said.
Mazur said it appeared they had been dead for some time.
"The smell will make you throw up, the decomposing smell," she said.
She said she had been smelling a foul odor - not as intense as the one she noticed after the door was open - in the area for about two days, and earlier heard an alarm clocking going off in the apartment.
The female resident worked third shift but had been feeling ill, so Mazur assumed she was just sleeping through the alarm.
She said the couple had been quiet in the short time she knew them. The woman introduced herself once. The man never spoke although Mazur would say "hello" as a courtesy when she saw him.
Then on Wednesday, she passed him in the entryway and said "hi."
He let out an unsettling chuckle, she said.
"It kind of creeped me out," Mazur said.