HUNTSVILLE, AL. (THECOUNT) — Jordan Darnell West, 21, and Synquavia Keyona “Keke” Staples, 22, have been identified as the young couple found dead Sunday evening inside a Huntsville apartment in a case police are investigating as a murder-suicide.
West and Staples were both graduates of Handley High School in Roanoke, Alabama, where they were members of the Class of 2023. The couple attended their senior prom together. West was a football and basketball player at Handley and was a member of the school’s 2020 football team that won the Class 4A state championship. Staples was active in Handley’s cheer program and was selected as the school’s 2022 homecoming queen. She was also voted prom queen during her senior year.
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Huntsville Police Department officers were dispatched around 7 p.m. Sunday, September 27, to a residence on Johns Road after receiving information that two people inside the apartment might be deceased. Officers arrived and found West and Staples inside. Both were pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.
Investigators with the HPD Major Crimes Unit processed the scene and reported finding no evidence indicating that anyone outside the two individuals was involved in their deaths. HPD spokesperson Christopher Jackson confirmed the incident was being investigated as a murder-suicide.
Police have not publicly identified which of the two was believed to have killed the other, and the cause of death has not been released.
After graduating from Handley, Staples pursued a career in nursing at Jacksonville State University.
The investigation remains with the Huntsville Police Department. No additional details concerning the circumstances surrounding the deaths had been released.
Huntsville is located in Madison County in north Alabama, near the Tennessee state line and within the Huntsville metropolitan area. Johns Road is in the western portion of the city, where officers responded Sunday evening to the apartment residence.
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