A woman and her two children are dead after her boyfriend confessed to shooting them Tuesday at a west Las Vegas apartment, police said.

Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Robert Price said in a briefing near the scene late Tuesday night that a man, who had a superficial gunshot wound to his stomach, drove to a police substation around 7 p.m. to report that he had shot his girlfriend and her two children.

Price said officers then breached the apartment on the 5100 block of O’Bannon Drive, near West Sahara Avenue and South Decatur Boulevard, where they found the three people — a woman in her 40s, a teenage girl and a boy under 10.

“Unfortunately, domestic violence is always one of our top causal factors of homicide,” Price said. “It’s something we encourage anybody that’s having these types of issues to please reach out for assistance.”

Price said the suspect was being interviewed by homicide detectives, and the investigation remains ongoing.

Police identified the suspect as Juan Carlos Orona. While Price had initially said Tuesday night that the suspect was in his 50s, police on Wednesday said Orona is 29.

Orona was booked overnight on three counts of murder and 10 counts of discharging a gun into an occupied structure. He was expected to make an appearance in Las Vegas Justice Court on Thursday.

It was unknown how the suspect suffered the gunshot wound, Price said. Price said Tuesday night that authorities did not believe that Orona was the father of the children “but that is still unknown at this time.”

Neighbors of the victims said Wednesday morning they were stunned by the triple homicide at the Madison West apartment complex.

“For the most part this is a very quiet complex,” said Kai-ondra Abbott, who lives roughly 30 yards from where the shooting occurred. “I am shocked. Very shocked.”

Abbott continued: “They taped off the whole complex so we couldn’t see anything. The ambulance came and of course no one left with them so then we knew something terrible had happened.”

Norine Anderson and Juwan Colson live in the apartment directly across from the victims. They said the mother and her two children lived in the apartment for about three months. They both said a black truck with tinted black windows that would come and go from the apartments previously was parked near the apartment with its engine running. They thought the situation, in retrospect, was suspicious.

“Suspicious as hell,” Colson said.

The two said they were devastated to learn of the tragedy.

“I cried last night when I found out everything that happened,” Anderson said.

Colson called the crime “diabolical.”

Domestic violence homicides in Clark County

Liz Ortenburger is the chief executive officer of SafeNest, which is dedicated to ending domestic and sexual violence. She said the killings Tuesday night are the 23rd, 24th and 25th homicides of the year related to domestic violence in Clark County.

“It is heartbreaking any time that we have a homicide in this space, but when it includes children it is just devastating for all of us,” Ortenburger said.

She said everyone has a right to live in a relationship free from violence and abuse. Setting boundaries and seeing if those boundaries are respected is a good way to measure where one stands, and relationships should be given time as opposed to rushing in. The most dangerous time for a woman in a domestic violence situation is when a woman is getting ready to leave or she has left.

Ortenburger said that anyone in an unhealthy relationship that may be escalating toward violence can call or text the SafeNest hotline at 702-646-4981 to speak with a trained advocate.

Contact Devan Patel at dpatel@reviewjournal.com