A Florida deputy reportedly shot and killed his wife before turning the gun on himself at their Land O’ Lakes home early Monday.
“Kirk has lost his mind Kristin,” Samantha Keithley, 33, text a friend late Sunday, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “He’s literally losing it. He’s been harassing me for the last 6 hours and I’ve asked him repeatedly to just leave me alone because I’m sick.”
The alarming texts were sent at 11:50 p.m.—minutes before authorities said Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputy Kirk Keithley, 39, fatally shot his wife and killed himself. The Tampa Bay Times reported that Samantha also indicated in the fateful texts that she had thrown her wedding ring outside.
Pasco County police were dispatched to the home around midnight after a 14-year-old heard gunshots, fled the home, and called 911. Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said the three other children were found safe in the home. Officers discovered Samantha’s body in one room and Kirk’s in another, he said.
“Oh my god, my stepdad just shot my mom in the head,” the boy told the dispatcher, according to the newspaper. “Please help me.”
In the call, the 14-year-old, Samantha’s son from a previous marriage, said he didn’t know where his stepdad or weapons were.
“My stepdad and mom had been arguing for a night and she went to a hotel and she came back and I heard them arguing and I heard a gunshot and I walked outside and I saw her, she was bloody, and I saw her dead,” he said, explaining that he ran to a friend’s house.
A family friend told the local newspaper that the couple had been married for six years and each brought a child from a previous relationship.
WTSP reported that Kirk had been with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office since June 2009. Before that, he was an officer with the St. Petersburg Police Department from 2003 to 2009.
Records obtained by the news station indicated that Kirk had been disciplined twice: once in 2016 for “misuse of communications facilities” and once in 2011 for an “avoidable traffic crash.”
[Featured image: Kirk Keithley, Samantha Keithley/Facebook]
