LONG BEACH (CBSLA) — Homicide detectives are investigating the death of two people found inside a Long Beach apartment.

Officers arrived at the scene around 3 p.m. Thursday to conduct a welfare check on the occupants of an apartment unit in the 1300 block of Appleton Way. The landlord requested the check, because the people inside had not paid their rent, which the landlord said was unusual for them.

Police said when they arrived they found two people deceased in the lower level of the two-story building.

A neighbor said he didn't know the couple very well, but said the occupants were married and the man was very sick. He said the apartment manager and the police had a hard time getting into the apartment.

"One officer came, and then another officer came, and the next thing you know they had 11 officers here," Matt Wood, a neighbor, said. "They had discovered that there were two bodies in there and they had barricaded themselves into their bedroom. They brought a battering ram in, and once they knocked the battering ram, all of these flies came out of the apartment. It was really a unique sight. Really sad."

Wood said when he looked into the apartment from across the way, he said he saw a number of shell casings on the floor inside the apartment.

Information on the victims and the circumstances of their deaths were not immediately released.