Ex-police chief and his lover found shot dead in porch of their home 'after neighbours spotted bloodstains on window'

A retired police inspector and his girlfriend were found shot dead at his home, it emerged yesterday.
The bodies of Bill Dowling, 59, and a woman named locally as Vicky, were lying in the blood- spattered porch.
Witnesses spoke of seeing blood on the glass door with the bodies fully visible to passers-by after three loud bangs were heard coming from the house on Saturday morning.
Police say they are not looking for anyone else in connection with what they called an ‘isolated and tragic incident’.
Mr Dowling, a divorced father of two, had recently returned from a month-long holiday to Australia on his own, according to a neighbour. He was described as a friendly ‘gentle giant’ by acquaintances who said they were mystified as to what lay behind the deaths on an estate in Devizes, Wiltshire.
Neighbours on the 50-property cul-de-sac yesterday described their shock, with one recalling how Mr Dowling had an interest in shooting pheasants. The neighbour, who asked not to be named, said he believed Mr Dowling had a firearms licence.

He said: ‘I have known him for more than a decade and he was into shooting. I’d seen him load what looked like a big gun case into his car a few times. I think he went pheasant shooting.

Police were called to the house on the Moonrakers housing estate in Devizes on Saturday morning 

‘It was a big gun – it looked like it could have been a shotgun. He had long had an interest in shooting but over the last couple of months I saw him in his shooting gear a lot more.’
Another neighbour said: ‘I heard screams and then what I thought was a door slam. It must have been shots. We went to check on them and the porch was spattered in blood.’
Detective Chief Inspector Ian Saunders from Wiltshire Police, where Mr Dowling worked for 30 years before retiring six years ago, said officers were alerted by neighbours who spotted the bodies. He added: ‘Exactly what led to this tragic incident is still being investigated.’
A weapon was recovered from the scene, but police would not confirm the type of firearm or whether Mr Dowling was a registered gun owner.
Yesterday the youngest of Mr Dowling’s sons, James, 31, was too upset to comment.

Former police inspector Bill Dowling and his partner were found dead at the house having suffered apparent gunshot wounds 

But from his home, less than half a mile away from the shooting, he said: ‘I can confirm we have suffered a sudden death in the family. We are obviously grieving and we don’t want to say anything further at this time.’
Officers were keeping guard at the entrance to Mr Dowling’s house, while forensic experts worked beneath a tent positioned at the front of the end-of-terrace property. The police cordon also enclosed a Skoda Fabia vRS hatchback parked outside.
Neighbour Sandra Nairn, 55, said of Mr Dowling: ‘He was lovely. We used to chat all the time. He’d always say hello – he said hello to everybody.

Wiltshire Police say they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths 

‘I don’t know very much about Vicky, I just used to chat to her to say hello. They’d been together quite a while and seemed happy enough together. I last saw them last week and they were all smiles.’
Another neighbour, Shirley Carr, 52, said she heard a commotion at around 8.40am on Saturday. She said: ‘I heard the initial first bang, now I know it was a shot, it was so loud.
‘Then, no more than five minutes later, another two quieter bangs came. There were three in total.’
A friend of Mr Dowling said: ‘I’ve known Bill for 18 years. He was a great guy. He was going out with a woman called Vicky, but they didn’t live together. She was in her early 50s, blonde and pretty attractive. She used to come and go. They seemed quite a happy couple.
‘He was a gentle giant. He was over six foot tall and was well known in the community.’
Mr Dowling was a station commander at Marlborough police station for nearly five years.
He left that role in 2004 and became a force operations room inspector in the control room in Devizes.

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