Medical Examiner identifies couple killed Sunday in Graham-area homicide-suicide
A man and woman fatally shot Sunday in a homicide-suicide near Graham have been identified.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office said Wednesday that 64-year-old Robert Bryan Peterson’s death was a suicide, and that 62-year-old Diana Theresa Ballard’s death was a homicide.
Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer gave this account of what happened:
Deputies responded to a 911 call just before 4 p.m. Sunday about a man found dead in a detached garage.
They arrived at the home in the 24700 block of 68th Avenue East and found Peterson’s body with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the garage, where he lived with Ballard, who was his girlfriend.
She was found fatally shot nearby.
Witnesses said they heard an argument in the garage about 1 a.m.
There wasn’t any known prior domestic violence between the couple.
