Sheriff’s investigators late Friday night confirmed the identities of a man and woman whose bodies were found earlier in the day inside a Santa Ynez home.
The grisly discovery — at about 1:15 p.m. Friday — came more than two hours after Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies and other emergency personnel converged on the two-story house in the 3400 block of Manzana Street, blocking nearby streets and evacuating houses.
The victims of what may be a murder-suicide were identified as a married couple, Guy Sydney Erway Jr., 48, and Ruth Jochum Erway, 42, sheriff’s spokesman Drew Sugars said in a press release issued shortly before 11 p.m.
Deputies were called to the cul-de-sac of upscale homes at about 11 a.m., after a neighbor reported hearing an argument and then shots being fired, according to sheriff’s Lt. Phil Willis.
The bodies were found after heavily armed deputies — members of the department’s Special Enforcement Team — spotted a man lying on the floor inside the house, apparently dead, according to emergency radio traffic.
Deputies entered the house soon after to check on the condition of the man, and a woman who also was believed to be in the house.
Emergency radio traffic indicated the man may have told a relative he was going to kill his wife and take his own life, but Willis said he could not confirm that.
No details about the cause and circumstances of their deaths were released.
Earlier Friday, sheriff’s officials would not released the identities of the two victims, but a neighbor who would not give his name said the man who lived in the house with his wife and son was Erway, who owned a pool maintenance and repair service — The Pool Guy — in Santa Ynez.
Mike Trebbow, who lives across the street, said he was sitting on his front lawn Friday morning when he heard yelling and cursing coming from his neighbor’s house.
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“The man that lives behind Guy was yelling at him to stop beating his wife and to come outside and fight him like a real man. Guy was yelling back at him and wouldn’t come out,” Trebbow said. “That’s when the deputies were called.”
Minutes later, two deputies arrived and walked down the driveway, then rushed back to their squad car and grabbed additional firearms, Trebbow said.
“They were prowling around Guy’s house and one of the deputies said, ‘I can see you’ to Guy. About a minute later, five or six shots were fired. There was a pause, and the last shot was fired,” Trebbow said.
No movement was visible in the house until the deputies entered an hour and a half later and discovered the bodies, Trebbow added.
“It was a total shock to me, because I was friends with Guy. We would talk in the mornings while he was getting ready to head out, and it just was so surprising,” Trebbow said.
Another neighbor, who declined to give his name, said Guy Erway was a likable guy who had said recently that his wife wanted a divorce. The neighbor also said he thought Erway owned several assault rifles because of photographs Erway had shown him.
Several blocks around Cuesta and Manzana streets — most of Santa Ynez west of Edison Street and south of Pine Street — were closed for hours as officers tried to make contact with the man inside the home. About half a dozen nearby homes also were evacuated.
Nearly a dozen patrol cars, as well as fire engines and an ambulance, swarmed the blocks of Cuesta Street between Tivola Street and Santa Ynez Park as a county sheriff’s helicopter flew overhead during the incident.
Two dogs were inside the house, according to Sugars, and animal-control officers were called to take care of them. They appeared to be unharmed, he said.
