A married couple was found dead inside a home in a subdivision off O'Neal Lane on Monday afternoon, authorities said, drawing a large law enforcement presence as neighbors and family gathered on doorsteps to look on.
Double killing off O'Neal Lane: Wife was strangled, husband died of gunshot wound, coroner says
The victims were found inside a house in the 1600 block of Indigo Ridge Avenue around 12:30 p.m., said Casey Rayborn Hicks, a spokesperson for the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office. They were identified Monday evening as Coby Manuel, 59, and his wife, Jenell Manuel, also 59. Hicks said a relative went to check on the couple after not hearing from them for several days, and found them dead.
Investigators believe the bodies lay inside the house for some time before the relative discovered them.
Other details about the killings were not immediately available. It was too early in the investigation to make presumptions about the circumstances, Hicks said, with an autopsy and homicide investigation pending.
The community lies near other subdivisions about half a mile north of George O'Neal Road and about a quarter mile east of O'Neal Lane.
Investigators worked the scene for hours Monday afternoon, closing off a section of the circular block at least four houses long and combing a house at the middle of the closed-off section from front to back, taking photos along a driveway on the house's eastern side.
Neighbors emerged from their houses in shock soon after deputies arrived, with one woman saying she first heard of the deaths when a friend saw on the news that two people had been killed on her street and called to ask if she was safe.
"We're relatively quiet in here," said the woman, who declined to provide her name. "We don't really know what happened, but it makes me question my safety."
The Advocate tracks homicides in East Baton Rouge Parish based on FBI crime reporting criteria — killings that law enforcement deem intentional and unjustified, which are legally classified as manslaughter or murder. The numbers are preliminary and can change if, for example, an investigation shows a killing thought to be unjustified was carried out in self defense.
If the deaths on Indigo Ridge are found to fit those criteria, they would mark the third and fourth homicides of the year in East Baton Rouge, the newspaper's records show.
The homicide investigation is ongoing and the East Baton Rouge Coroner will perform an autopsy, said Hicks.