JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Two families are in mourning following the discovery of a horrific scene inside a home in Jacksonville’s Arlington area.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office was investigating Thursday after a man and a woman were found dead.
JSO said it learned of the deaths after a man got the attention of an officer and said he shot two people. JSO said the man, whose name has not been released yet, was detained.
Family members said the man who was killed is Bryan Gates, 43, and that he owned the home. They also said the woman was his girlfriend and the mother of a small child.
The families of both of those killed suspect Gates’ roommate was the shooter, and they got confirmation after speaking with detectives.
Jacksonville police said on Thursday afternoon that a man near the corner of Whitlock Avenue and Arlington Road flagged down a patrol officer and told the officer he had shot two people inside a home on Whitlock Avenue. When police entered the house, they said they found the bodies of a man and a woman.
After talking to deputies, the family confirmed to News4JAX that the shooter who flagged down police was Gates’ roommate, a man who Gates had known for years and was trying to help get back on his feet by allowing him to live in the home rent-free.
Moments before the Arlington block became a crime scene, a friend of the family said he was on his way to work and called Gates’ mother to report seeing Gates’ roommate on the sidewalk acting strange.
“I happened to notice the guy on the sidewalk pounding the sidewalk, beating his head like he was just hysterical and out of it. I called his mother and said ‘Bryan’s roommate is back on that stuff. He seems like he’s having a hissy fit,’” the family friend said.
He said two hours later he got the call to come back to the area because police were investigating a homicide at the house.
What led up to the shooting remains unclear, but relatives and friends of Gates told News4JAX there had recently been some tension between the two men.
News4JAX learned that many people in the area knew Gates.
An employee of a seafood shop that’s about 300 feet from the house told News4JAX that Gates would volunteer to help out with the shop’s landscaping.
Gates’ son, Bryan Gates Jr., was not surprised by his father’s popularity.
“He was very famous, and he was very friendly. Everywhere I went, even when I was little, hanging out with him, he always knew someone, dapping them up, all smiles. He was a great person,” Gates Jr. said.
Gates Jr. has many memories of his dad but said the memories that really stick out are those of him and his dad battling each other on the basketball court.
All that’s left now are memories of those epic battles, memories of the fun times between a father and son.
Right now, JSO is calling the shooting a homicide investigation and has yet to classify it as a double murder.