13 Investigates: Domestic violence linked to four murder-suicides in Southern Colorado since August

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- In recent months, there have been a string of murder-suicides in Southern Colorado. 13 Investigates has found that domestic violence is prominent in nearly all of them.

On August 7, tragedy struck when the El Paso County Sheriff's Office responded to a shots-fired call in Security-Widefield. When they arrived, Alex Paz had been shot and killed by her boyfriend John Paz. Then, Paz opened fire on responding law enforcement officers, shooting and killing Deputy Andrew Peery.

One week later, on August 15, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office responded to a 911 disturbance call in a gated Black Forest community. Inside a home, they found two deceased adults. They labeled the crime scene a murder-suicide with David Tilley killing his wife, Breanna Tilley.

On November 13, the Teller County Sheriff's Office to a 911 call from a child inside a home in the Colorado Mountain Estates neighborhood in Florissant. Inside the home, they found two adults dead and three children safe. The Sheriff's Office suspects that 27-year-old Sean Mills killed his girlfriend 29-year-old, Adrianna Mills.

Most recently, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office responded to a Lorson Ranch home on December 19 for a shots fired call. Inside a home, they found three adults dead, one male and two females. The victims have been identified as 27-year-old Vanessa Anderson and 26-year-old Autumn Kirkpatrick. The suspect, who the sheriff's office said was Anderson's ex-boyfriend, has been identified as Wilmer Soto.

These murder-suicides represent a wider problem of a link between domestic violence and murder-suicides that 13 Investigates has been looking into for months. The latest data on this issue is from a 2021 domestic violence report released by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser's office.

Data shows men are five times more likely than women to kill their current or former partners, and men were about four times as likely as women to complete suicide in the context of domestic violence.

"One of the calls to all of us is to open up conversations around trauma, asking someone, Are you okay? Is something going on," Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said. "Whether it's asking a child, whether it's asking a coworker, if we can have those conversations, we can save lives, either domestic violence fatalities or suicides. Too often, people are afraid or uncertain as that opens up these conversations and people end up suffering in silence."

13 Investigates spoke with board-certified forensic physiologist Nicole Schneider Friday. She says the amount of murder-suicides is concerning, but there are typically warning signs.

"This is absolutely something we need to be concerned about. And before it reaches this level, because this has been a catastrophic level," Dr. Schneider said. "But these relationships don't start this way. They start with it's like if you put a frog in boiling water, it'll jump out. If you put it in warm water and slowly turn up the heat, it'll just die and it'll stay in there."

While over half of domestic violence fatalities involved victims killed by their intimate partners (55%), perpetrators who died by suicide were significant (24%), followed-by perpetrators killed by police (10%) and collateral victims (8%).

"They are almost always committed with a firearm, and it's almost always a female victim. So sometimes there can be a triggering event, like a change in the relationship status where one partner decides to file for a protective order or file for divorce or get separated," Dr. Schneider said.

In these four domestic violence murder-suicides, Deputy Andrew Peery and 26-year-old Autumn Kirkpatrick were considered collateral victims. Peery was a law enforcement officer doing a job and Kirkpatrick was said to be helping her friend move items out of a home she had been living at.

"We in Colorado are at our best when we're looking after one another. When we see anything that suggests something's wrong, we can do something about it," Weiser said. "We can be there for our colleagues, our family members. We can help them get resources that can be transformative and even lifesaving."