KEY POINTS:
Gisborne police are not looking for anybody else in connection with two separate homicides that left three people dead and a fourth in a critical condition.
Police were called to Temple Street at 9.30am, where they found a man, dead with a gunshot wound to the stomach and a woman seriously hurt.
She remains in hospital in a critical condition with a gunshot wound to the stomach and hand injuries.
Police were then called to an incident in Buchanan Street at 11.30am and had to break into a house where they found a man, 42, and a woman, 36, with serious injuries.
Both died at the scene.
Detective Sergeant Kevin Ford said police were not looking for anybody else in connection with the incidents but that two homicide investigations had been launched.
He confirmed gunshot wounds had been sustained in the first incident and a weapon was found at the scene but would not say what type of injuries had caused the deaths in the second.
In both cases the alarm was raised by neighbours and there was no link between the incidents.
No additional police would be required from outside the district to investigate.
Mr Ford agreed it was unusual to have two such incidents in Gisborne on the same day.
"I would say it would be unusual anywhere."
Acting Area Commander Senior Sergeant Moera Brown said one of the families was known to them, the other had only recently moved to Gisborne from Mahia, south of the city.
She said it was not yet clear who was the perpetrator in either incident.
Their next of kin were being contacted.
- NZPA
