As previously reported, a highly respected doctor and his wife were gunned down in the garage of their home in Simi Valley, California, on Sunday.
Dr. Eric Cordes, a board-certified radiologist and physician, and his wife, Vicki Cordes, were executed in a “targeted” shooting, according to police.
Police identified the killer as Dr. Cordes’s own son, Keith Cordes.
“Detectives identified a car leaving the area and heading south that belonged to Keith Cordes, 37, the son of Eric Cordes and the stepson of Vicki Cordes, who was from Kentucky,” NBC News reported.
Keith Cordes was found deceased from a gunshot wound in a burned car 70 miles away in Chino.
“Police tracked the car to Chino and found that the owner of the car had set it on fire before fatally shooting himself,” NBC News reported.
A neighbor told The New York Post that Keith Cordes drove up to his doctor father’s Simi Valley home in a Honda Civic and waited to ambush the victims.
“I watched them die,” a neighbor recounted to The New York Post.
Dr. Cordes and Vicki Cordes were found with multiple gunshot wounds.
A motive for the murders is unclear.
The New York Post reported:
Chilling new details have emerged in the execution of a Simi Valley doctor and his wife — their killer son sat in wait to ambush and gun down the beloved couple in their own garage, a neighbor told The Post.
Ketih Cordes drove past the home in his black Honda Civic, then staked it out as he waited for the perfect moment to strike, the neighbor said Wednesday.
“He did like a drive-by, like a dry run at 11:25 and then went and staked out at that cul de sac,” said Mike Hylton, who lives five houses down from the bloodied crime scene.
“Then at 12:01 he must have waited for the garage door to open and that was it,” the neighbor said.
That’s when Hylton’s son heard shots fired, looked outside and saw a car take off. Hylton ran to the couple’s home where he saw Dr. Eric Cordes, 63, and his wife Vicki Schiller, 66, shot multiple times in their garage.
Cordes was shot in the neck and head, and was “hanging out of his Masaratti door jam,” Hylton said.
Schiller was behind him laying on the ground with “holes all over her,” Hylton added.