A Washington state man gunned down his estranged wife and her boyfriend last week after she had obtained an order of protection against him.
The protection order hadn’t been served when Robert Child, 60, went to a home in Mason County and murdered Anna Child and Jason Hilde, both 46, KING reports.
Court documents say deputies were called around 7 p.m. Tuesday and arrived to find Hilde near the front door with a shotgun blast to the head. Child was found on a staircase. Deputies also found a shotgun and spent shells inside the home.
Witnesses said that Robert Child, a convicted felon who was not allowed to have a gun but had at least one anyway, said before he left that he would not go back to jail and would kill anyone who came after him. Witnesses said he left the scene in a white pickup truck
Another witness said Child entered the home armed with a shotgun.
Anna Child filed for the protection order against her killer on March 9, writing in the request that didn’t feel save. He told her, she said, that “if he can’t have me, no one will.” The order was granted on Monday, barring him from coming with 250 feet of his wife, but the order had not been served when he murdered his wife and Hilde.
Mason County Sheriff Ryan Spurling said he ordered an investigation to see if “anything further could have been done” to prevent the murders.
Child was arrested on Wednesday, the sheriff’s office said in a press release praising the “outstanding work” of deputies in arresting the killer after the fact. He has been charged with two counts of murder and one count of burglary and was ordered held on a $5 million bond, KING said.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Robert Child, not allowed to have a gun carrying a gun and his arrest by Mason County deputies/Mason County Sheriff’s Office]
