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Police identify couple found slain in Northeast apartment

The homicides put the city ahead of the number at this time in 2020, a year that reached near-record levels.

Philadelphia Police investigators stand outside the Michner Court Apartments in Northeast Philadelphia after the shootings Friday. A maintenance worker found a male and female with gun shots to the head.
Philadelphia Police investigators stand outside the Michner Court Apartments in Northeast Philadelphia after the shootings Friday. A maintenance worker found a male and female with gun shots to the head.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

Philadelphia police on Saturday identified the man and woman found fatally shot inside a Northeast apartment Friday afternoon.

Mark Ruff, 58, and Nicole Newell, 43, were found with gunshot wounds to the head by a maintenance worker at the Michner Court Apartments in the 9400 block of East Roosevelt Boulevard, police said.

No gun was found at the scene, said police, who were called to the scene shortly before 3 p.m. The slayings remained unsolved as of Saturday night.

The fatal shootings come at a time when the Police Department is grappling with a continued upward trend in homicides, which reached near-record levels last year. There have been 33 homicides so far this year, compared with 32 at the same time last year, according to the department.

Last year, 499 homicides were recorded, more than in any year in city history except 1990, the height of the crack cocaine scourge. That year, 500 people were slain.