Honolulu police detectives Monday were investigating an apparent murder- suicide involving a 38-year-old man who shot his child at their home in Waialua.

Police officers responded to a 9:33 a.m. call regarding an argument at the Kuhi Street home and arrived to find a girl who said she was unable to open a locked bedroom where her father and 3-year-old brother were.

Officers asked her to wait outside while they checked the brown-painted wooden house with a corrugated roof. They found an open window on the back side and entered the room to find the dead man and the child lying on a bed.

HPD Detective Deena Thoemmes said both bodies had gunshot wounds, the man’s being self-inflicted.

“At this time it appears it is a murder-type suicide,” Thoemmes said.

Honolulu Emergency Serv­ices responded at about 11 a.m. and pronounced the two dead at the scene.

When one of the bodies was placed in a Memorial Transport of Hawaii van, a woman wailed, “My son. That’s my son!”

An autopsy is scheduled for today.

The Medical Examiner’s Office said the names of the deceased were unavailable Monday evening, but neighbors identified the dead father as Dexter Blue-Lorenzo, also known as Dexter Lazo.

It was a tense scene for much of the day Monday as police cordoned off Kuhi Street for several hours and family members waited for additional information.

“It’s a very sad case for the community and the family,” Thoemmes said.

Rolando Vidad, a neighbor who has lived across the street from the brown house for decades, said he was tending his chickens in his fenced yard when he heard three or four gunshots in a row.

Frightened, he retreated to his house and heard two more shots a few minutes later.

He later saw the girl, who apparently is the dead man’s daughter, come out of the brown house and cross the street, where she asked Vidad’s brother, who lives next door, for help.

“That’s when I got worried something bad must have happened,” he said.

After police officers arrived and found the bodies, he heard the daughter cry out, “Why, why, why?”

The mother arrived a few hours later and was very emotional, according to Vidad.

He and other neighbors said they were shocked by the events of the day. They described the family as quiet and having a tendency to keep to themselves.

Vidad said he remembered the couple taking walks with the little boy in the afternoons.

“They seem like good folks,” he said. “They were nice people. They walked. We said hi and that was about it.”