A Washington-based podcaster and her husband are dead, and police say the suspect was one of her own listeners who had been stalking her for months, People reports.
Redmond Police said in a recent press release that they responded to a call of shots fired at a home at approximately 1:45 a.m. on Friday, and found three dead at the scene.
Police identified suspect Ramin Khodakaramrezaei, 38, as one of the deceased. Though police did not release the names of the victims, The Daily Beast reported them as Washington-based podcaster 33-year-old Zohreh Sadeghi and her 35-year-old husband Mohammed Naseri.
Police said when they entered the home, they had found a man — whom The Daily Beast identified as Naseri — lying on the floor injured from a gunshot wound and performed CPR on him.
However, he succumbed to injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene. He had been shot in the upper torso and had been trying to escape the home, but had collapsed near the front door, Redmond Police Chief Darrell Lowe told the outlet.
Police said in a press conference they went further into the home and discovered the bodies of Sadeghi and Khodakaramrezaei in the primary bedroom, per ABC News. Lowe told reporters that Khodakaramrezaei had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Khodakaramrezaei had broken into the couple’s home through a window. Sadeghi’s mother had also been at the house, but had escaped and called 911 at a neighbor’s home, according to The Daily Beast.
Police said in a press release they were familiar with Sadeghi and the home as both had been a part of an ongoing stalking investigation.
Lowe told The Daily Beast that Khodakaramrezaei contacted Sadeghi after listening in on a podcast she was featured in about “gaining employment in the tech industry.” Police said in their release that the two exchanged messages and became friends, but “things escalated.”
Sadeghi contacted police in December about “harassing behavior” by Khodakaramrezaei and told them that he would repeatedly contact her on the phone and even called her more than 100 times in a single day, Lowe told the publication. He said this eventually escalated to in-person stalking and that Khodakaramrezaei had visited her house once before and even followed her to a conference in Denver.
Sadeghi filed a no-contact order against him and was granted a temporary protection order, to prevent contact between them, according to the outlet.
Police said at the press conference that they had been trying to find Khodakaramrezaei, who is believed to have been from Texas, but were having a hard time pinpointing his location because his work as a long-haul truck driver kept him moving from state to state, according to ABC News.
“A restraining order is simply a piece of paper that allows officers to take enforcement action should a suspect violate the court order. But a piece of paper does not protect a person when someone is intent on causing them harm,” said Lowe at the press conference, who also noted that this was “the absolute worst outcome.”