Area police were seeking a man in the fatal shooting of his 41-year-old estranged wife and the wounding of her male friend inside her home in the 5000 block of Brampton Parkway in Ellicott City late last night.
The husband was reportedly driving a Toyota with Maryland tags VEJ 169 and was believed to be armed with a handgun.
According to Sgt. Steven Keller, a Howard County Police spokesman, the names of the victims were being withheld pending notification of relatives.
Someone, reportedly the wounded man, called the police shortly after 10 p.m. and reported the shooting, according to Sergeant Keller.
When police arrived on the scene, a Colonial-style home on more than an acre of land in the Brampton Hills development near Montgomery Road, they found the woman lying in a second floor room, bleeding from at least one gunshot wound to the head.
She was transported to Howard County General Hospital, where she died a short time later, Sergeant Keller said.
The wounded man, reportedly shot in the leg and arm, was flown by a State Police Med-Evac helicopter to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
His condition was not immediately known but he was expected to survive.
Sgt. Keller said there were no children in the house at the time of the shooting.