Inset: Jason Kenney (Polk County Sheriff”s Office). Background: Lemon Avenue in Lakeland, Florida, where Kenney allegedly shot his wife and stepdaughter (Google Maps).
Authorities in Florida are investigating a murder-suicide and the shooting of a 13-year-old girl after an argument started when the suspect’s wife asked him to turn off the Monday Night Football game, cops say.
According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded just before 11 p.m. on Monday to a report of a shooting on Lemon Avenue in Lakeland. A 12-year-old boy ran to his neighbor’s house and asked for help because his mother, Crystal Kenney, and stepfather, 47-year-old Jason Kenney, were fighting. As he was running to the neighbor’s house, he heard gunshots.
Deputies rushed to the home where they found Crystal Kenney dead and her 13-year-old daughter suffering from gunshot wounds to the face and shoulder. They also discovered a 1-year-old girl who was unharmed. Crystal Kenney was pronounced dead, while the 13-year-old girl is in critical but stable condition at a hospital.
“We later learned, the bullet in the face hit her on the bridge of the nose, went straight up and out the top of her head,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said of the 13-year-old during a press conference.
Judd said the girl is alert and talking.
“That’s a Christmas miracle,” Judd said.
Deputies identified Jason Kenney as the suspect and learned he fled the scene in his truck. As he drove, he called his sister in upstate New York and said “I did something terrible and this is the last time you’ll ever talk to me,” 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.”
He drove to his father’s house in nearby Lake Wales and hid in a shed, Judd said. Deputies were trying to coax him out when they heard a gunshot. They entered the shed where they found him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
An investigation revealed the suspect became enraged at his wife when she suggested changing the channel toward the end of the Monday Night Football game. He pulled out a gun and shot her in the head, Judd said.
Then the suspect turned his sights on his stepdaughter.
“She said, ‘I begged him, don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me,’ and he shot me anyway,” the girl told detectives.
Investigators also found an undated letter Crystal Kenney wrote to her husband, where she told him she was concerned about his drug and alcohol use.
Judd called the shooting “horrific,” especially considering the time of year.
“He just absolutely destroyed a family, literally, and the mental health of two children without their mama and an infant that will grow up without a mother and a father three days before Christmas,” he said.
