On the morning of September 16, 2025, Linda Oldenburg, 68, a woman from South Beloit, Illinois, was found dead inside a home on the 1000 block of Gardner Street after officers conducted a welfare check. Police noticed a bullet hole in a window that appeared to have been fired from inside before forcing entry and discovering two people with gunshot wounds, a firearm near one of the victims, and no signs of danger to the neighborhood. Autopsies later confirmed that both victims died of gunshot wounds and that the woman was killed before the man took his own life, and authorities described the case as a domestic-related murder-suicide.
Friends and local reporting identified the woman as Linda Oldenburg of South Beloit, remembered for years of waitressing in the Stateline area and close ties to family. A community fundraiser created two days after the shooting named her and described the loss as a sudden, devastating act that left loved ones scrambling to cover funeral costs. Local death notices the following week listed Linda L. Oldenburg, confirming the date of death as September 16, 2025.
Investigators said there was no ongoing threat to the public. The Winnebago County Coroner’s Office reported the sequence of events as consistent with a domestic murder-suicide—Linda Oldenburg, killed first, followed by the man’s self-inflicted gunshot—while South Beloit Police, assisted by county and neighboring agencies, continued the criminal investigation. A gun-violence database entry recorded the incident at the Gardner Street address on the same date.
As friends mourned, a family acquaintance told local television that Raymond L. Saunders III, 55, was Linda Oldenburg’s longtime boyfriend and identified him as the man who died by suicide after the killing. With the suspected shooter deceased at the scene, authorities did not report any arrests.
