FL Man, Shot Killed Wife During Argument About ‘Monday Night Football’: Sheriff

POLK COUNTY, FL — A Lakeland man shot and killed his wife during an argument about “Monday Night Football,” and then shot his 13-year-old stepdaughter, critically injuring her, before leaving their home before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life, authorities said.

Deputies received a 911 call from a woman on Lemon Avenue in the Highland City area of Lakeland just before 11 p.m. reporting that a 12-year-old boy ran to her house and asked her to call law enforcement because his stepfather and mother were fighting, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

Jason Kenney, 47, was watching the San Francisco 49ers playing on television when his wife, Crystal Kenney, suggested they watch something else toward the end of the game, investigators said.

The couple argued and it “got really heated,” Sheriff Grady Judd said during a Tuesday news conference.

Crystal told her son to call 911. As he ran from the house to ask his neighbor for help, he heard the first gunshot, Judd said.

Deputies arrived at the home within five minutes to find Crystal had been fatally shot in the head.

“But it gets worse,” the sheriff said.

Detectives found Jason’s 13-year-old stepdaughter in a bedroom with two gunshot wounds - one to the shoulder, the other to the face. They also found the couple’s 1-year-old daughter asleep and unharmed in her crib.

The teen is alive and in critical but stable condition at Lakeland Regional Hospital. She’s also alert and talking, Judd said. “That’s a Christmas miracle.”

She told investigators that she begged her stepfather for her life, telling them that she said to him, “Don’t shoot me. Don’t shoot me. Don’t shoot me.”

The girl added, during an interview with deputies, “And he shot me anyway,” according to Judd.

Jason left the home in his truck before deputies arrived. He called his sister in upstate New York as he drove to his dead father’s Lake Wales home. A friend is currently staying at the home, which is in probate, the sheriff said.

“I’ve done something very, very bad, very bad; I did something terrible, and this is the last time you will ever talk to me,” he told his sister, according to Judd. “You’ll see me on the news, but I am not going to jail; I’m not going to jail for the rest of my life.”

When Jason got to the home, he went into a separate shed on the property.

Deputies, who had been tracking him, got to the home not long after this and ordered him to come out.

After hearing a gunshot, they found the suspect had fatally shot himself in the forehead, the sheriff’s office said.

Investigators found a note that Crystal wrote to her husband about his drinking and drug use.

While they’re not sure if the note was written the night of the shooting or before it, in the letter, she told Jason, “This is not the way family should be. You need God,” Judd said.

Another family member told deputies that the suspect had a history of domestic violence against his wife, though he was never arrested for it and the sheriff’s office never received any calls from her or anyone in their home, the sheriff said.

“But bottom line is, three days before Christmas, he shot and killed his wife; he shot his 13-year-old stepdaughter twice and intended to kill her, called his sister and confessed that he did something terrible, and then, rather than be arrested, he shot and then killed himself,” Judd said.

The sheriff added, “Quite frankly, I don’t want to sound sinister, but the only thing he did right that night was shoot himself after those horrible deeds. If he felt that way he could have taken himself out and not hurt those two beautiful people.”

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