By Molly Montag, Mason City Globe Gazette

MASON CITY — Residents in the Highlands area of Mason City were stunned by a double homicide early Thursday in the normally quiet residential neighborhood.

Police said Melinda Kavars, 54, and Caleb Christensen, 37, were found dead in Christensen’s home at 1620 N. Hampshire Ave.

Officers responded to the area at 2:15 a.m. to a report of gunshots.

A Lake Mills man identified as the suspect, Peter Veal, was arrested after a brief foot chase 15 minutes later at 12th Street Northeast and North Carolina Avenue. He was charged Thursday with two counts of first-degree murder.

Highlands resident Donna Meyers could barely believe what she was looking at when she saw the crime scene tape strung across North Hampshire Avenue. She drives by Christensen’s home regularly on her way to and from her home on 17th Street Northeast.

“I saw the yellow (tape) and I thought, ‘Why would they still have Halloween stuff out?’ and then … Oh, my gosh,” Meyers said, looking out her car window at police officers and crime scene personnel gathered behind the crime scene tape. “Oh my gosh. I need to call my sister. This is so weird.”

The house where the bodies were found is on North Hampshire Avenue near 17th Street Northeast. It’s about a block from the southwest corner of Highland Park Golf Course.

Christensen had owned the home since 2004.

North Hampshire Avenue resident Gloria Paulsen said her dog, Greta, acted as if she heard something from the direction of Christensen’s home when Paulsen let the dog outside at 2 a.m.

“She was very, very upset,” Paulsen said of the dog, who monitored her master’s interview with reporters from a front window. “She had her hair standing up on her back, yea high.”

Paulsen, who lives several houses south of Christensen, said the neighborhood is normally very quiet.

Mason City Police Lt. Rich Jensen wouldn’t say if Veal knew Kavars and Christensen. He also wouldn’t say what investigators believe motivated the killings.

He asked anyone with information about the incident to contact police.

“If they know anything that may be pertinent to this homicide investigation, come forward,” Jensen said.

Veal mumbled through his initial court appearance Thursday afternoon, telling Magistrate Judge Ronald Wagenaar he hadn’t done anything wrong. He also denied that his name was Peter Veal.

The hearing was conducted by video, with Wagenaar speaking from an office on the second floor of Cerro Gordo County Courthouse in downtown Mason City and Veal watching in handcuffs from a room at the county jail on Lark Avenue.

When asked if he understood the charges against him, Veal said no.

Wagenaar asked Veal what he didn’t understand.

“I didn’t do nothing,” Veal began. “I don’t understand why…”

The judge cut him off.

“I do not want you making any statements or admissions on that,” Wagenaar said. “I’m simply … That is what you are charged with.”

He also advised Veal, twice, of his right to have a court-appointed attorney if he desired.

Veal also told the judge he didn’t understand that right.

His bond was set at $1 million, cash-only. The next court appearance is Wednesday.

Records show Veal has a history of arrests in Mason City.

Iowa Department of Corrections records list multiple prison stints for Veal dating to 2006, and indicated he was placed under pre-trial supervision back in 2003.

Some of the accusations include an assault on a peace officer, kicking a bartender in the face at the former Dillinger’s Bar and Grill in Mason City, and participating in a fight that injured five people at Vibrations Night Club north of the Mason City limits.

In 2013, he was accused of breaking into an ex-girlfriend’s home through a window, assaulting her and holding her against her will for several hours. Burglary charges were dismissed, and Veal was sentenced to up to five years after pleading guilty to false imprisonment, vandalism and domestic assault.

Veal was released from parole on April 25.

His sister, Ruthann Veal, was convicted of killing a woman in Waterloo in 1993.

The victim, Catherine Haynes, was stabbed 23 times.

A 14-year-old runaway at the time of the murder, Ruthann Veal was tried as an adult and sentenced to life in prison. Her conviction was modified in 2013 to allow the possibility of parole due to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found mandatory life without parole for juveniles was cruel and unusual punishment.