Wake investigators ask to search phone found linked to bloody deaths of Apex man, cat

On Aug. 9, Alex Oudshoorn told investigators that he found his father, Frans Oudshoorn, dead in a puddle of blood at their home at 3504 Lexham Court in Apex.

Alex Oudshoorn told dispatchers his father looked like he had hit his head and bled to death. Investigators found Frans Oudshoorn at the bottom of a staircase, with blood "on the walls of the hallway near the stairs and at the bottom of the stairs on the handrail," investigators wrote in the warrant application.

Alex Oudshoorn told investigators that he'd encountered his father the night before, bloody and wrapped in Christmas lights at the bottom of the stairs. He said he "cut his dad loose from the lights, and his dad asked him for a blanket and pillow which he gave to him and left him on the floor," investigators wrote in applying for the search warrant.

"Alex asked his dad if he was OK, to which his father replied that he was fine," investigators wrote. The son then left the house with a friend, returning the next afternoon to find his father dead and called 911.

In a search of the house, investigators found the iPhone.

According to the warrant, Alex Oudshoorn also told investigators that he found the family cat dead in the bathroom, wrapped it in plastic and put it in the freezer. When asked what happened, investigators wrote, "he told them what happened to the cat is the same thing that happened to his dad."

Eric Curry, a spokesman with the Wake County Sheriff's Office, said the elder Oudshoorn apparently had a stroke and that his death was not considered suspicious.

Records show that Alex Oudshoorn had already lost his mother, Diana Arden Rupp, who died at 52.