Investigation continues into deaths of man, woman found in Waco motel
By PAUL MONIES
Tribune-Herald staff writer
The manager of a Waco motel where two bodies were found Sunday said police told him a suicide note was found in the room.
"We're treating the deaths as questionable until the investigation says otherwise," said Steve Anderson, Waco police spokesman.
Police received a call at 5:17 a.m. Sunday to check a room at the Travel Inn in Waco, Anderson said. When officers arrived, they found a woman dead with a gunshot wound and a man's body that was partially decomposed, Anderson said.
Investigators were still waiting on preliminary autopsy results Tuesday, Anderson said. The woman was identified by a motel employee as Patricia Johnston. The man's name was still uncertain as of press time.
Anderson did say Johnston and the man were in their 40s or 50s and were from the East Coast.
The manager of the motel, John Patel, said Tuesday police told him they had found a handwritten suicide note from Johnston to him. Patel said she had written that she was sorry she had to kill herself in the room and had left money for the clean up.
Patel said he had records showing that a call to the main Waco police number ? not 9-1-1 ? originated from the couple's room at 5:14 a.m. Sunday. Police officials would not confirm that Tuesday.
Patel said the couple checked in Sept. 9 and had told employees they were from New York City.
Motel employee Brandy Irvin said she had talked with Johnston several times but that the couple always had a "Do not disturb" sign on their door. She said Johnston last had housekeeping clean the room Nov. 10.
"If they have the sign out, we respect their privacy," Irvin said. "We hadn't any problems with them before and they'd been here two months. They paid the weekly rent promptly in cash."
Irvin said she had last seen Johnston on Saturday but had not seen the man since the previous Sunday, Nov. 11.
"The whole of last week, we never saw him," Irvin said. "I never would have dreamed something like this would have happened."
Irvin said she now noticed several signs that Johnston may have planned to kill herself. Johnston had her dog euthanized several weeks ago and recently donated her 2000 Ford Mustang to Jehovah's Witnesses, she said.
A Waco church representative, George Norris, said that he had been contacted by the national headquarters of the church to act as a local contact after Johnston told church officials she wanted to contribute her car and some of her estate to the church.
"I met with her and she signed the papers," Norris said. "It's a very sad thing that happened. I did go over there and try to talk her into quitting smoking, because the room was very smoky. I think she had terminal lung cancer."
The motel's night desk clerk, Ernest, who did not give his last name, said the man had told him the couple had an apartment in midtown Manhattan, just 10 blocks from the site of the World Trade Center.
"He said he was looking forward to going home, even though he said their apartment still had dust in it from the collapse of the towers," Ernest said.
Paul Monies can be reached at [email protected] or at 757-5751.