FROM WUSA TV, Washington DC




91-Year-Old Retired Ambassador Shoots Himself, Wife

Date created: 5/15/2008 11:48:00 AM
Last updated: 5/15/2008 5:49:48 PM



WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- Neighbors say the elderly couple was fun and full of life. Now they're trying to figure out why retired Ambassador Richard Funkhouser would shoot his wife and himself.Advertisement

It's about the last place you'd expect a shooting.

The Ingleside Presbyterian Retirement community in well-to-do Chevy Chase, DC. But it was there in the parking garage that a resident found the 91 year old Ambassador Funkhouser and his 90 year old wife Phylis, both dead from gunshot wounds.

Police say she was inside the car, he was outside, a handgun at his side. No reaction, except horror," says one resident.

Friends say Richard Funkhouser had been caring for his wife for years, as she became more and more feeble. They suspect her failing health may have led to this. One woman tells me her heart goes out to him as much as to her. She suspects he may have felt he had no alternative.

"It's upsetting and disturbing that we weren't able to get to this couple in time," says Mayor Adrian Fenty.

The center's director says the murder suicide came without warning. "Mr. Funkhouser seemed to be very happy go lucky," says Louis Varella.

He remembers a conversation from a year ago. Funkhouser asked him, "When could I free up some time to play 9 holes of golf with him and a couple of residents. And I consistently told him I'd have to get back to him."

Varella says he's mobilized chaplains and retired ministers to try and help the center's shocked residents deal with their grief.

Funkhouser was a decorated World War Two hero, flying the China-Burma-India hump to bring in supplies.

With his wife at his side, he'd served as an ambassador in Africa, and a top civilian official in Vietnam during the height of the war.

But a friend says he had perhaps never had a more challenging assignment than caring for the ailing love of his life.


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