A 23-year-old man was charged with killing a mother of four in a double shooting that also wounded a 50-year-old man early Friday morning in Roanoke.

Connie Michelle Mills' two daughters were home when she was fatally shot about 3 a.m. in their house at Madison Avenue and Sixth Street Northwest, according to a longtime family friend who rushed to the scene after his wife heard gunshots and woke him.

Mills was 37; it was unclear how old her daughters are. Her two other children live elsewhere.

The suspect, Michael Edward Holmes of Roanoke, surrendered to authorities in Botetourt County about 7:30 a.m. Roanoke police later charged him with murder, malicious wounding, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and with breaking and entering to commit murder, according to city police spokeswoman Aisha Johnson.

The other shooting victim, David Macklin Ray, also of Roanoke, was taken to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. Ray's sister, Mary Ray, said he was shot two or three times in the leg.

"He's doing so-so," Mary Ray said. "He has no feeling in one of his legs."

Barry Minor, who has known Mills for about 30 years, said he was outside with Mills and David Ray a few hours before the shooting. "We were just sitting out, goofing off," Minor recalled. He said he walked home about 12:30 a.m. and went to bed.

When his wife woke him later, Minor said he returned to Mills' house and learned she had been killed and that police found David Ray lying in the back yard.

Mary Ray said her brother told her Friday that an argument had erupted between Mills and a man at Mills' house. Mills shut her front door to keep the man outside, Mary Ray recounted, but he forced the door open and shot Mills and then David Ray.

She said she did not know what sparked the argument. Police declined to discuss a motive.

Friday's bloody incident stunned the tight-knit neighborhood. Bereaved friends and family members gathered at Mills' mother's house, which is next door, and tried to make sense of the killing. Several said they could not fathom someone wanting to hurt Mills.

"She was a good person," Alicia McGhee, a longtime neighbor, said. "She took care of her kids. Her kids came first."

Mills' son, David, said he and his grandmother had not decided who Mills' daughters would live with now. Mills' third daughter lives elsewhere, friends of the family said.

Friday's killing was the city's ninth this year. There were six homicides in Roanoke in 2004.