RED SPRINGS — A 71-year-old man fatally wounded his wife and then shot and killed himself on Thursday, according to Robeson County Sheriff Ken Sealey.

Sealey said that Wilbur Ray Merritt, who lived on the 10,000 block of N.C. West just outside of Red Springs, called a child of his at about 5:45 p.m. and told that person he had “just shot your momma.”

A 911 call sent sheriff’s deputies to the scene, where they found 67-year-old Katherine Merritt alive but severely injured on the carport of the home. She died soon afterward. Her husband, already dead, was found a few feet away.

No one else was at the home.

Sheriff’s investigators don’t know what led to the shooting deaths.