Fatal shooting at UC Irvine housing

IRVINE, Calif. (KABC) -- Police say a woman was shot to death at a University of California Irvine campus housing complex.

Police say they have a suspect in custody, but they are still piecing together just what happened.

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UC Irvine police say that this is the first homicide on the school's campus, and it appears that this incident is a deadly domestic dispute.

What makes this situation even more tragic is that according to investigators, it appears that the couple's four-year-old child was nearby when the gun fire rang out.

The shooting happened about 7 p.m. Sunday in the parking lot outside the Verono Apartments, a housing complex for UCI graduate students.

At this point, the investigators are not sure if the couple were husband and wife or simply boyfriend and girlfriend.

Either way, investigators say that the couple had been fighting inside their apartment, carried out into the parking lot, where the 35-year-old suspect pulled out a gun and opened fire.

The 30-year-old victim was rushed to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.

The suspect was taken into custody at the scene without incident.

There were numerous witnesses to the deadly violence. Those who heard the gunfire say they couldn't believe what was going on.

"A guy ran past us and said you know someone's been shot you need to get back into your house you know get back to your house and our house is over here and we were over there so we didn't know which way to go where the shooter had been," says Natalia Newcomb, a witness.

"It sounded like gunshots or firecrackers, I wasn't too sure," says another witness John Hare.

"I looked out my balcony to see what was going on, but I couldn't see anything and I find out later it was a shooting," he adds.

"This appears to have been a couple and so it looks like the suspect had an intended target," says John Hare of Irvine Police.

"It doesn't look like the campus is in jeopardy in any way and again like I said the suspect has been taken into custody," says Hare.

Authorities say that there were multiple rounds fired, but the only person struck in the incident was the victim. The suspect is likely to face murder charges.

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