A shooting Monday at a nursing home in Dunlap, Tennessee, that claimed two lives is believed to have been a murder-suicide, according to investigators.

The husband of a resident at the nursing home walked into her room at NHC HealthCare in downtown Dunlap and fatally shot her and then turned the gun on himself, Randy Phillips, Dunlap police chief, said in a phone interview.

"It's a murder-suicide," Phillips said.

The deceased couple will be named later, Phillips said. He said the couple's ages are appropriate for nursing home residents, but the chief didn't give specific ages and said the husband was not a resident at the facility.

Dispatchers took the call at 9:47 a.m. CDT Monday as a shooting at the nursing home, Phillips said. The facility is behind the Sequatchie County Justice Center and six or seven blocks from the Dunlap Police Department.

Staff at the nursing home told officers at the scene there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary when the man arrived Monday morning, Phillips said.

"He walked like he was visiting like he would do every day," Phillips said. "Then they heard the shots in her room."

After authorities secured the scene, investigators determined there was no further danger to the public, he said.

Staff at NHC HealthCare in Dunlap declined to comment on the incident when reached by phone Monday.

Investigators with the district attorney's office and the Sequatchie County Sheriff's Office have joined the police department investigation, Phillips said, noting state investigators were also called in.

"We are assisting the police department with the continuing investigation," TBI spokesperson Susan Niland confirmed in an email.

District Attorney Courtney C. Lynch or Assistant District Attorney Steve Strain will release more details on the incident in the next couple of days, officials said.

Phillips said such a tragedy is unprecedented in the Sequatchie County seat.

"I don't know that we've ever had this happen in the city limits of Dunlap," he said. "I worked at the sheriff's office in 1994 and then went to work for the city in 1995. I've lived here my whole life, and I don't remember anything like this in the city limits."

In 2023, there were two murder-suicides in neighboring Marion County that claimed eight lives.

In South Pittsburg, Tennessee, Austin Seabolt, 23, was believed to have shot Jennah Curtis, 20, dead at a home in the 400 block of Dixie Avenue on Jan. 24, 2023.

On June 15, 2023, authorities responding to a house fire found the bodies of three adults and three children in the home. Gary Barnett, 48, was believed to have shot and killed Regina Barnett, 52, her daughter, Brittnee Perez, 33, and at least one of the three children found dead at his home on Pine Street in Sequatchie, Tennessee, before setting the house on fire and then shooting himself. The children ranged in age from 2 to 11.