JERSEY CITY -- The courtyards of a Bergen-Lafayette housing complex were mostly quiet Thursday morning as men and women headed to work and children walked to school.

But as residents passed one another on the sidewalks some stopped to shed tears together trying to make sense of an apparent murder-suicide that left a young mother and lifelong resident of the complex dead.

"It's a sad day for Booker T," one man said as he walked back to his apartment.

Ashley Bradby, 23, was shot dead near 290 Bright St. at about 2:20 a.m. The gunman, 29-year-old Tyquan Thomas, then fatally shot himself, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said.

Bradby and Thomas were in a "dating relationship" and were involved in a dispute at a nearby apartment before the murder-suicide, Suarez said. Some residents, however, said the couple had recently split.

Rosa Toleda walked past the scene of the fatal shooting with tears in her eyes. She said Bradby worked as a cashier at ShopRite to provide for her young son. The mother always had a smile on her face and there was no one who had a bad thing to say about her.

"She took good care of that boy," Toledo said.

Hours after the murder-suicide, Toledo joined Lenora Madison and Jaqueline Smith near the basketball courts at the housing complex. The three women, who have known Bradby's family for decades, shared stories of a loving mother whose death they described as a great loss for the community.

"It's a sad loss," Smith said. "It's a heartbreaking loss. It's a heartbreaking loss, that one is a heart-breaker because she was such a sweet girl."

Madison, a crossing guard, said she just kept thinking about what happened while she was working this morning. She remembers watching Bradby run around the complex as a young girl with colorful barrettes in her hair. Madison has a son about the same age and thought the two might "connect" when they were growing up.

"You would never expect this," Madison said.

It's been a violent few days in Jersey City with Bradby's death marking the third murder in less than a week. Early Saturday morning, Amir Pleasant, 20, was shot in the chest on Dwight Street. He attempted to drive himself to Jersey City Medical Center, crashed his car outside the hospital, and was pronounced dead a short time later.

Later that morning, Albanelis Vidal De Larosa, 51, was found dead wrapped in blankets on Reservoir Avenue. Her ex-boyfriend, Miguel Angel Cabrera Romero, has been charged with her death.

This is at least the third domestic violence-related death in Hudson County this year and second in Jersey City. In 2016, seven women and three men were killed in domestic disputes in Hudson County. Of those killings, three women were fatally shot in murder-suicides.

Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.