Aggravated kidnapping leaves man dead, woman injured
UPDATE: The Austin Police Department initially thought children were not involved in this incident. APD is now saying a 10-year-old family member was present during the incident.
He is safe and has been reunited with family.
The 10-year-old boy is not the child of the suspect or the victim.
Multiple law enforcement agencies investigated an aggravated kidnapping that turned deadly.
The Austin Police Department said it started at an HEB parking lot in Central Austin and ended in a neighborhood in West Austin.
Gavin Griffith lives in the quiet neighborhood in West Austin, where the end of this incident played out. He said he was playing video games at his home off of Aqua Verde Drive when around 3 pm he heard a knock at his door. “I saw a little kid asking what my address was. I first asked if he was okay cause I saw blood on the phone. I grabbed the phone and started doing exactly what 911 told me to do.”
The scene of a crime was playing out in his driveway where he ran out to find a man and woman with gunshot wounds in a car. “He didn’t look like he was breathing, he didn’t look very responsive. The woman did look responsive. She was looking around, looking at me, holding her arm, I could see a lot of blood,” he said.
The Austin Police Department said it all started in Central Austin in an HEB parking lot off of Burnet Drive. Senior Police Officer Veneza Bremner with APD said the initial call came in as an aggravated kidnapping around 1:30 in the afternoon and the incident involved two individuals who knew each other.
Bremner said they knew at least one person was injured at that time.
Bremner also said because it was a shopping complex, there were many witnesses as well as surveillance helping them with the investigation. “The good part about being out in public like this we did have several witnesses and we were able to obtain some video detectives are going to take a look at and everything as well.”
Bremner said another agency, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office were also investigating the same incident.
Kristen Dark with the TCSO said just before 3pm, a woman called 911 and said a man had shot her and shot himself. “When the initial call came in our caller wasn’t sure exactly where she was we had many deputies that were racing, running code all through this area to try to figure out exactly where she was,” she said.
Griffith said he gave the 911 operator his address and deputies were able to make it to scene.
CPR was attempted, but the man in his 20s died at the scene. The woman also in her 20s, was taken to the hospital, Austin-Travis County EMS said she had serious potentially life threatening injuries.
It wasn't clear why they ended up in Griffith’s neighborhood, “No idea who they are, never seen them before.” But he said it something he will never forget, “Very surrealistic. Just kind of kicked into my survival instinct and wanted to make sure everyone was okay. I still did not know what was going on (but) did everything I could until the cops showed up and they could take over,” he said.