Suicide couple ends marriage where it began

LAS VEGAS -- A couple traveled from their home in Nevada to the Florida church where they were married 40 years ago in an apparent suicide pact, police said.

A pastor found Bruce Wright and his wife, Patricia Wright, Sunday morning beneath an oak tree behind Friendship United Methodist Church in Punta Gorda, about 80 miles south of Tampa. Two guns were nearby.

"He used a shotgun to his head and she used the rifle," said Bob Carpenter, a spokesman for the Charlotte County, Fla., sheriff's office. "It was in the head, too. It was a pact."

The husband, 60, was found dead, and his wife, 57, died Wednesday after several days on life support at an area hospital, Carpenter said.

The couple's nephew, Daniel Johnson, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the Wrights had no children and rarely kept contact with family members.

"It was a romantic tragedy," said Johnson, 28. "Life started for the two of them there, and that's officially where life ended for them." The couple had attended high school in Charlotte County and still had family in the area, he said. -- AP