Neighbor remembers Greenwood homicide victim

GREENWOOD— A woman is dead after she was shot in a Greenwood apartment.

It's the city's first homicide of the year. The shooting happened Thursday night in the 600 block of Nicklaus Drive, at the Courts of Valle Vista Apartment Complex.

Neighbors say it's a quiet neighborhood, this type of thing doesn't happen.

"I opened my door and heard boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I watched him come out, like not a care in the world had happened," Renee Cecchett said.

Police said the suspect and the victim are dead, the victim has been identified as 35-year-old Rachel Cooke.

"I just can't believe she's gone. It's just wrong," Cecchett said. "She was a beautiful person."

Cecchett lived just across the hall from Cooke.

She said she moved into the complex in May.

Her emotions were still raw remembering the neighbor and friend she said she had countless conversations with on their shared back porch.

"She was a happy-go-lucky person. That's how I always saw her, because she was always jolly," Cecchett said. "I heard this pop, it sounded like first somebody hammering something on the wall. Then it went boom, boom, boom, boom. This is pre-meditated."

Police said the homicide is a result of a domestic disturbance.

"How can you quote-unquote care for someone or love them and then act so violently towards them?" said Matt Fillenwarth, the assistant chief for the department.

Greenwood police say they were called just after 5 p.m., neighbors reported hearing gunshots.

When police got there, they say they found Cooke dead.

"It never makes sense, I've been doing this almost 30 years and this never makes sense," Fillenwarth said. "It's just an all-around tragedy, nobody wins in this. He didn't win by killing her, he didn't win by stopping her from seeing other people."

The 35-year-old suspect hasn't been named. He was pulled over a few hours after the shooting in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Police say he took his own life as officers were walking up to his car.

Cecchett said she never knew the couple to have any problems, never heard of any fighting and never expected this to happen.

"Not even a scream. I don't know what transpired, I don't know if she was trying to break up with him. I don't know," Cecchett said.

They are questions she won't get the answer to.

What angers her the most is that Cooke leaves behind a daughter.

Police say Cooke and the suspect were in a relationship and worked together at the Johnson County Juvenile Detention Facility.