Bellefontaine Neighbors Murder-Suicide, 3 Dead

BELLEFONTAINE NEIGHBORS, MO — Police responded to a home in the 1200 block of Hoyt Drive in a subdivision east of the Bellefontaine Conservation Area in north St. Louis County Friday after receiving a midnight phone from a man police believe killed his wife, her 15-year-old son, and himself. He reportedly told a dispatcher that police would find three bodies in the home before hanging up and shooting himself under the chin.

Police said they also found a 4-year-old girl pretending to be asleep in her bedroom in the back of the home. She was uninjured.

Bellefontaine Neighbors Police Chief Jeremy Ihler said the girl told investigators that she had come into the living room after hearing gunshots and found her mother dead. Her father told her to go back to her room and she stayed there as her father killed himself.

Police found the man, who was in his 30s, on the living room couch beside the phone used to place the 911 call. He had a 9mm semi-automatic handgun on his lap.

Police have not released the man's identity or the identity of his victims.

More than 30,000 Americans are killed by guns every year and twice that number are injured, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 13,000 are murdered. The rest take their own lives or are victims of shooting accidents. Almost half are children or young adults.

Last year St. Louis cracked its 25-year murder record. Per capita, the city ranks third for homicides in the United States and first for non-fatal shootings, according to data from the FBI and Major Cities Chiefs Association.

According to the gun safety group Everytown, millions of American women are shot by domestic partners every year, and the presence of a gun in the home makes a woman five times more likely to die from domestic violence. Indeed, most mass shootings in the United States are not high-profile attacks like Las Vegas, Orlando or Parkland, Florida; 54 percent are related to domestic or family violence.

Missouri Republicans passed a law in 2016 — overriding the veto of then-Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon — loosening the state's gun laws and making it easier for domestic abusers to obtain guns. A bill to fix the loophole created by that law is currently in committee. A hearing has not been scheduled and the bill is opposed by the National Rifle Association.

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