A MOM-OF-THREE has been killed and her teen daughter critically wounded in a horror Christmas shooting over the television remote.
Authorities have revealed that 47-year-old Jason Kenney died by suicide after the shocking incident that took place during a televised NFL game on Monday, just days before Christmas.
Kenney, from Polk County, Florida, shot and killed his wife Crystal Kenney and his 13-year-old stepdaughter on December 22 before turning the gun on himself, Sheriff Grady Judd said.
During the argument, Crystal’s 12-year-old son fled the home under his mother’s instruction to go to the neighbor’s house to call the police.
As he ran away from the property, gunfire rang out.
The couple’s one-year-old daughter was found uninjured and asleep in her crib.
The late-night argument was sparked when Crystal didn’t want Jason to keep watching the NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers and Indiana Colts inside the house.
According to the Polk County Sheriff, Jason had been drinking and watching the game in a shed away from the house but returned inside for the last minutes.
When his wife confronted him over control of the television in the house, the argument erupted and at that point, Crystal told her son to go to the neighbors to call for help.
Police officers arrived at the scene after the 12-year-old boy reported hearing gunshots, and they found Crystal dead inside the house with a shot to the head.
They later found her daughter severely wounded in a bedroom with two gunshot wounds, one to her face and another to her shoulder.
“She said, ‘I begged him, don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me, and he shot me anyway,” Sheriff Judd said at a police conference, recalling what the girl told him.
According to the Sheriff, the girl’s survival from the horror attack is “a Christmas miracle” after one of the bullets hit the bridge of her nose and went through the top of her head, where it exited.
She is now critical but stable in hospital.
After arriving at the scene at the house, officers tracked Kenney down who had fled to his father’s home and locked himself in the shed.
During the drive there, he called his sister and told her “he had done something very, very bad,” Sheriff Judd said.
Jason then told his sister that “the next time you see me will be on the news”.
Once surrounded by cops in the shed who tried to get him to surrender, Jason killed himself with his gun.
A search of the family home revealed private struggles, with a note from Crystal to her husband telling him to get help for addiction issues.
“You’re drinking, you’re using cocaine again. This is not the way the family should be. You need God,” it read.
The three children have been placed in the care of Crystal’s parents.
“He just absolutely destroyed a family,” Sheriff Judd said.
“Our homicide detectives are distraught. Three days before Christmas, he shot and killed his wife, he shot his 13-year-old stepdaughter twice, and intended to kill her.
“When you go in there, there is a beautiful Christmas tree with lots of Christmas presents under it, just like the nuclear family should be.
“The only thing he did right that night was shoot himself.”
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.
