Sun, Jul 05, 2009
Police seal the scene at 110 E. Prince Road, where a man and woman were killed in a double homicide early Wednesday afternoon outside a trailer home. Neighbors heard six to eight gunshots.
david sanders / Arizona Daily Star

Tucson Region

Young woman, man shot to death

Bodies found in trailer yard near Amphitheater schools
By Jamar Younger
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.30.2008
A man and a woman were found shot to death in the front yard of a trailer home on the North Side on Wednesday afternoon, authorities said.
Tucson police said they received reports of gunshots just before 2 p.m. Officers arrived in the 100 block of East Prince Road, just east of North Stone Avenue, and found the two bodies, said Lt. Rick Middleton, a Tucson police spokesman.
Both victims, an 18-year-old woman and a man in his late teens or early 20s, suffered gunshot wounds. The woman was identified as Valeria A. Mendez. The man's name was not released Wednesday.
Police did not release any information regarding the shooter, but said they are looking for a green late-1990s Chrysler Sebring convertible.
Authorities haven't established a motive, but they are treating the case as a double slaying. "We're looking at all scenarios for this case," said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson police spokesman.
Amphitheater High School, which is around the corner from the trailer park, went into lockdown for about an hour Wednesday because of the incident, a district official said.
The shooting happened across the street from Prince Elementary School and Amphitheater Middle School, which sit next door to each other.
Neither of those schools went into lockdown, said Todd Jaeger, associate to the superintendent of Amphitheater School District.
Amphitheater Middle School released students early for parent and teacher conferences, said Principal Charles Bermudez. The students had already been dismissed when the shooting occurred, Bermudez said.
Bermudez was in a meeting when he heard about the shooting. "My lead custodian heard the shots. We went out there but we couldn't see anything," he said.
That wasn't the first time gunshots were fired in the neighborhood near the school, Bermudez said.
"We hear shots every once in a while."
● Contact reporter Jamar Younger at 573-4115 or jyounger @azstarnet.com.