Dorchester County mother and son deaths now deemed apparent murder-suicide

The killing of a 61-year-old Dorchester County woman has turned into an apparent murder-suicide investigation after her son was found dead in North Charleston this morning, authorities said.

On Thursday, deputies were called to 151 Brandywine Drive after 61-year-old Lynda Pages’ other son found her cold, unresponsive and slumped over on a living room couch at 8:20 p.m. according to an incident report.

The front door had been left open, and deputies noted a shell casing on the floor of the living room and a puddle of blood at Pages’ feet, deputies said. She had been shot in the eye, according to Dorchester County Coroner Chris Nisbet.

The son, Jonathan Pages of Florida, told deputies he was planning to spend Christmas with his mother and had last spoken to her, by phone, at 9 p.m. on Wednesday. She told him his brother Bertrand Pages, 31, of North Carolina, had already arrived, a police report stated.

A neighbor told deputies he saw a dark sport utility vehicle parked in the driveway of Pages’ home the previous evening. He and another neighbor reported hearing a loud boom at about 10 p.m. Wednesday but they did not see anything out of the ordinary.

Jonathan Pages told deputies his brother might have killed their mother due to problems he was having, Nisbet said.

At about 9 a.m. Friday, Bertrand Pages was found dead in his vehicle in the parking lot of a Chili’s Restaurant on Dorchester Road, about one mile 151 Brandywine Drive, Nisbet said. It appeared he died Thursday night from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, he said.

The deaths appear to be a murder-suicide, but it is unclear what prompted the episode, which remains under investigation by the sheriff’s office, Nisbet said.

Nisbet said his heart goes out to the family, given the proximity to the holidays and the similarities between the incident and the beginning to the recent massacre in Newtown, Conn.

“It is especially difficult knowing that this situation is very similar to what happened in Connecticut, one week ago this morning, but with other multiple deaths occurring between the murder of one’s mother and the apparent suicide of himself,” he said.

Lynda Pages had an autopsy this morning. Her son is scheduled for an autopsy later today or Saturday morning.