FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) – A grieving family is desperate for answers after, police said, their parents were shot and killed inside a Fort Lauderdale home.
Speaking with 7News on Wednesday, Tonya Mitchell said she had to see her parents, Major and Claudette Melvin, in a funeral home.
“I got a chance to see to see them today. They look like they’re just sleeping, but it’s the worst thing that a person could ever imagine,” she said.
Mitchell raced to Fort Lauderdale on Friday from her home in North Carolina after she received news she never imagined she would hear.
“[I was told], ‘You need to get here, I think your parents have been murdered,’” she said. “I think I lost it.”
Major and Claudette, who were in their 80s, moved from Virginia in the 1970s and raised their children in their Fort Lauderdale home, located on Southwest 30th Terrace, near Seventh Street.
And it was inside their residence where, police said, the couple died. Detectives told family members that someone walked in through the front door and confronted Major.
“And when he got up, he got tangled up in the blanket, and they shot him point blank with a nine-millimeter,” said Mitchell.
The victim’s daughter said she was told her mother then entered from another room.
“They told me that she was shot as well, in the chest, and she fell back,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell said cash in the home wasn’t touched, and the culprit took off in the couple’s red Ford Fusion.
The grieving daughter said she has no idea why someone would kill Major, a retired county worker who still operated a backhoe, and Claudette, a retired housekeeper. The couple were the head of a large and loving family.
Neighbor Tommy Lavelle said he is still grappling with the magnitude of this tragedy.
“Boy, I don’t know. I don’t understand it. I just cannot understand it,” he said. “If they came in to rob them, I don’t understand why they went in and started shooting. I’ve known them for 24 years that we’ve been here.”
Now Mitchell has a message for the killer.
“What were you looking for? You took nothing, but you killed them. Who does that?” she said. “I want that person to know they have parents as well, and when they do find you, which I hope they do before we do, you’re going to burn in hell.”
Police said the Melvins’ 2014 Ford Fusion has the Florida tag LTDQ16.
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Source: wsvn
