Deloris Lynn “DeDe” Heald, a 56-year-old White woman, was found dead on August 19, 2008, in Zimmerman, Minnesota. When she failed to arrive for an on-call nursing shift, concerned co-workers contacted the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies went to her home and initially saw nothing amiss. A short time later, Heald’s adult son found a note from his father, Gary Heald, stating he had shot Deloris and another man.
Responding officers returned to the residence and discovered Deloris and Gary dead from gunshot wounds, the scene pointing to a murder-suicide.
Investigators used the note to identify the other man as 47-year-old Rory Zitur. When authorities went to Zitur’s home in St. Michael, they found him dead from a gunshot wound the same day. The linked deaths left three families shattered—coinciding discoveries only hours apart that traced back to the message Gary left behind.
Contemporaneous reporting indicated that the case involved relationships formed online; summaries in regional coverage noted law enforcement’s description of the killings as a double homicide followed by the perpetrator’s suicide. Subsequent compilations of suburban homicides recorded that Gary, 59, shot his wife Deloris and Zitur before killing himself. No arrests were made because the suspected perpetrator was deceased.
