Couple dead after apparent murder-suicide in rural Whitman County

A couple in their 60s died in an apparent murder-suicide Tuesday morning in a rural town in Whitman County.

Sheriff Brett Myers said a woman called 911 shortly after 7 a.m. to report she had just shot her husband at their home in Hay, about 30 miles west of Pullman.

The woman told a dispatcher she believed her husband had cancer and suggested she wanted to end his suffering, Myers said.

“We don’t have anything that confirms that, but that’s what she said,” Myers said.

Paramedics and sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home to find two bodies, later identified as Dennis L. Moore, 66, and his wife, Janice K. Moore, 63.

Each died from a single gunshot wound to the head from a small-caliber pistol, and her wound appeared to be self-inflicted, Myers said. The couple lived alone, he said.

Neither Moore appears to have a criminal record in Washington.

The shooting remains under investigation, but Myers said deputies are working with limited information.

“When they’re both gone, there’s not a lot left to go on,” he said.