Law enforcement launched an investigation into a suspected muder-suicide in Cohoes, New York, after a couple was found dead at The Lofts at Harmony Mills apartments.
City officials spoke about the incident during a press conference on Tuesday, August 18, just hours after the suspected murder-suicide took place.
Cohoes Police Department Chief Todd Waldin told reporters that authorities received calls on Tuesday around 11:06 a.m. claiming two shots had been fired in the apartment building, according to News 10.
Police quickly responded to the apartment complex and spoke to other people at the building before they determined that the shootings took place in a second-floor unit.
Everyone else on the floor was evacuated and police entered the unit around 4:30 p.m. They then found a 30-year-old woman and a 37-year-old man dead. The names of the victims have not yet been revealed, while police have not shared who they believe the suspect was and who the victim was.
Authorities learned that the couple had lived in the unit since December 2022, while Waldin said police never received any calls about the couple having domestic incidents in the past.
Waldin added that residents have since been allowed to return to their units, and the roads surrounding the apartment complex have reopened.
Waldin explained that it took several hours for authorities to determine when to enter the unit because they did not know what type of situation they were dealing with before entry.
“Once we had the two shots fired behind closed doors, and we do not know what has transpired, that’s the time that we have to determine: Is there a barricaded suspect situation? Is there a hostage situation? And we do not rush into those because you can actually cause more of a problem than you could potentially solve,” Waldin said.
Once they decided to enter the unit, they brought “in the technology, the drones, to see what they can see through the windows, cameras, you know, underneath the door and the experts for making a breach into the apartment who have all the right equipment to be able to do that.”
The Cohoes Police Department has recruited the help of the Colonie Police, Troy Police and New York State Police amid the investigation, which remains ongoing.
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