Police in Montgomery County, Maryland, are investigating the deaths of two people in Germantown on Monday as a murder-suicide.
Richard Maurice Harris, 51, is suspected of killing Michelle Carter, 50, police said on Tuesday.
At around 9 a.m. Monday, officers were called to the 18900 block of Highstream Drive for a report of a shooting. They found Carter and Harris lying in the parking lot of a townhome community. Both had gunshot wounds and were pronounced dead at the scene. A handgun was found nearby.
Montgomery County police detectives said Carter and Harris had previously been in a relationship.
According to the Pennsylvania parole board, Harris was out on parole in May 2021 after spending more than 30 years in prison for a kidnapping and rape conviction in Pennsylvania.
Montgomery County police confirmed Harris’ information from the parole board.
Harris and another man were convicted in 1988 of kidnapping a woman from a car using toy pistols, the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office in Pennsylvania said.
After kidnapping the woman, prosecutors said the two men forced her to commit sex acts. Harris was convicted of both kidnapping and rape and sentenced to 20 to 40 years behind bars, court documents said.
While in prison, Harris also pleaded guilty to threatening an assistant district attorney and the attorney’s family in Dauphin County in 2004.
Christopher Rivera is a longtime friend of Carter and is the father of her oldest son. Rivera said Carter and Harris had a relationship in the 1980s, which she ended.
Rivera, who is close with several of Carter’s children, said he discovered what happened when they began calling him about what took place.
“I was in shock; I didn’t know what to do,” Rivera said.
His attention now is focused on Carter’s five children, who are between the ages of 10 and 32 years old, who lost “their anchor,” he said.
“Her children were her No. 1 life; she would do anything for them,” Rivera said.
Rivera said he’s known Carter for 34 years and has never heard anyone say anything negative about her.
“She was always a thoughtful person. She would go out of her way to help anyone who needed help. She was always there,” Rivera said.
The family has started a fundraising account to raise money for her funeral expenses and to help her youngest children.
