HALAWA HEIGHTS — A husband and wife were found shot to death in their apartment last night on Halawa Heights Road, and police were investigating the case as a homicide.

Maj. Dave Kajihiro said he could not confirm earlier reports that the deaths might have been the result of a murder-suicide.

Kajihiro said the couple had lived at the apartment complex in this neighborhood near 'Aiea for only a couple of months. They have a teenage daughter, but she was not at home when police arrived, he said.

Details surrounding the deaths were sketchy, but Kajihiro said the couple were found in their bed in Apartment 4, 99-801 Halawa Heights Road, at the intersection with Kaholi Place.

Police responded to a dropped 911 call that came in at 6:39 p.m. yesterday. Officers arrived at the apartment and knocked on the door. Police said they could hear the wailing of a disconnected phone.

No one answered their knock, so officers entered through a louvered window in the back of the two-bedroom apartment and found a 60-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman dead on the bed with a handgun nearby, Kajihiro said. He described the handgun as a small-caliber pistol.

Police were withholding the names of the couple pending notification of next of kin.

"We're looking for the daughter and until then we can't release their names," Kajihiro said. Police are "concerned about her," he said.

Neighbor Randall Paule was shocked at news of the deaths.

"My mom was at home and heard gunshots and she thought it was a firecracker," said Paule, 15. "I feel bad."

Rose Bermanis lives in the apartment below the couple in the two-story complex. Bermanis said she was home all day and didn't hear anything.

"My air-con was on, maybe that's why I didn't hear anything," she said. "They seemed nice but kept to themselves. It's too bad," she said.

Even at 11 p.m., knots of people stood around talking about what might have happened.

The area by the apartment was cordoned off with yellow police tape, and a half-dozen police cars with blue lights on steady sat nearby, some in the parking lot, some in the street.

The Halawa Heights deaths come about a month after a husband and wife were found dead of gunshot wounds at their home in 'Ewa Beach.

In that April 25 incident, police say Domingo "Bunny" Dikito shot and killed Della, his wife of two decades, then turned the gun on himself.