Owners of 2 Houston restaurants identified as couple involved in triple murder-suicide
HOUSTON — KHOU 11 News has learned the identity of the couple killed in an apparent triple murder-suicide in the River Oaks area.
Matthew Mitchell and Thy Mitchell are listed as the owners of Traveler’s Cart, on Montrose Boulevard between West Gray Street and West Dallas Street, and Traveler’s Table, on Westheimer Road between Montrose Boulevard and Taft Street.
Restaurant employees confirmed the Mitchells died in the shootings.
Houston police said they were called out to a house on Kingston Street near Avalon Place for a welfare check around 5:30 p.m. Monday. Police said the family’s babysitter and one of the victims’ sisters called for the welfare check after they hadn’t seen or heard from the family since Sunday night.
Officials said officers got there quickly and entered the home, where they found four people dead.
Investigators confirmed they were all family members and the victims included a father, a mother and two children.
Police said the woman was 39, the children were 8 and 4, and the man, identified as the suspect, was 52. All four appeared to have been shot to death. Investigators said evidence at the scene indicates the man shot the three victims before shooting himself.
Investigators said they were working to determine a timeline, including when the family was last seen or heard from. They think it was sometime between Sunday night and when officers arrived Monday evening.
The Houston Police Department is handling the investigation and said the family was well-known in the community.
According to the bio on the Traveler’s Table restaurant website, Matthew Mitchell graduated from Emory University and studied in France, Italy and England. He also worked as a writer and journalist in London, Paris and New York City. After returning to Texas and spending 14 years in the pharmaceutical industry, he opened his first restaurant, Traveler’s Table.
According to her bio on the Traveler’s Table restaurant website, Thy Mitchell grew up in Houston and spent weekends working at her family’s Vietnamese restaurant. She got her undergrad from the University of Houston before earning her master’s degree from Penn State University.
A neighbor said the family hadn’t lived at the home for long, but she had seen them out and about.
“It’s very sad,” that neighbor said. “We don’t know all the details. A lot of people know more, I’m sure, than we know, but it’s just a tragedy when anything like this happens,” the neighbor said.
