Customers at the 7-Eleven on Ocean Street and Broadway were concerned Friday morning to find the store open but no shopkeeper inside.
Customers at the 7-Eleven on Ocean Street and Broadway were concerned Friday morning to find the store open but no shopkeeper inside. The police soon arrived and checked the bathroom, where they found the 24-year-old clerk, Nichole Schrock of Seaside, dead from gunshots wounds. Lying beside her was Illya Cavlan, a 42-year-old from San Jose, who had also been shot. SCPD spokesperson Zach Friend said that police believe that the two were involved in a relationship, and that the woman was the victim of domestic violence. They are calling the incident a murder-suicide, the first homicide of the year in the city.
“We are hopeful this won’t be a trend,” said Friend about the city’s first homicide occurring on the first day of the year. Santa Cruz recorded a total of just four homicides in all of 2009. Read more at the Mercury News and KSBW.
