TAMPA, Fla. _ Hours after one of his deputies shot three family members and then himself, a clearly shaken Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister told reporters there were no warning signs.
"He had a phenomenal reputation throughout the Sheriff's Office," Chronister said of deputy Terry Strawn, 58, who killed his wife, granddaughter and daughter early Wednesday before turning his service weapon on himself. "No indication whatsoever ... that this deputy would conduct himself in the manner he did."
While rare, a shocking break in behavior fits a pattern for law enforcement officers who kill loved ones before themselves, according to a 2014 study titled "Homicide-Suicide in police families: an analysis of cases."
"Our current results suggest that the majority of perpetrators were employed and in good standing with their departments at the time," noted the Journal of Forensic Practice, which used media reports to compile data about such incidents over a seven-year period.
Other known factors about the killings also fit a pattern. The vast majority of officers who kill family before themselves are white males using a service weapon, according to the study. Most are patrol officers, as opposed to supervisors, and work at a local department.
Chronister said that before killing himself, Strawn told dispatchers he was having financial and health problem and that "depression was real." But Strawn, who returned to the force this year as a school security deputy after retiring in 2017, showed no evidence of financial or health issues during a background check. In 2011, the deputy and his wife filed for bankruptcy protection in federal court. But court records show they qualified for a mortgage and bought a house this year.
Strawn's remaining family has declined to talk about the killings or what may have led up to them. As is often the case in suicides, the exact trigger may never be known.
One thing is clear: Law enforcement officers are more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty. Last year, at least 140 officers took their own lives while 129 died in the line of duty, according to a study by the Ruderman Family Foundation.
How many of those officers kill others before themselves is less clear. Robert E. Douglas Jr., a former Temple Terrace police officer who now runs the National Police Suicide Foundation, said that since 2004 about 106 officers have been involved in such incidents. He said those statistics are just a rough estimate because no government body keeps them.
The killings by Strawn mark the second time this year that a Hillsborough deputy killed a loved one before taking his own life. In September, Kirk Keithley shot and killed his wife Samantha before taking his own life.
Family murders like the one involving Strawn, who killed his wife, Theresa Strawn, 54, grand-daughter Londyn Strawn, 6 and daughter Courtney Strawn, 32, before killing himself, are even more unusual, said Cambridge, Massachusetts psychologist David Adams, author of "Why Do They Kill: Men Who Murder Their Intimate Partners."
In killing three family members plus himself, Strawn fits into the "family annihilator" category, said Adams, co-director of Emerge, a counseling program for men who abuse women.
"That happens much less," Adams said in a phone interview. "There are only about 100 or 120 or so a year."
In general, he said, a person who murders his family has suffered some type of humiliation or impropriety and then decides to kill the others "out of a skewed sense of righteousness, actually trying to protect their family by killing them so that they don't suffer as well."
The 2014 study on law enforcement-involved murder-suicides found that nearly half were motivated by some form of divorce or estrangement from an intimate partner and 69 percent involved some form of ongoing domestic violence.
The Ruderman Family Foundation report cites mental illness, including depression and post traumatic stress disorder, as factors leading to suicide by law enforcement officers.
In 2004, Strawn and another deputy shot and killed a man while responding to a domestic violence call. The man pointed a metal and plastic tool at the deputies as they tried to arrest him, according to news accounts of the incident. Fearing the object was a gun, the deputies fired their weapons.
Strawn was named an Officer of the Year in 2009. Sheriff's officials cited his work in removing dangerous criminals from the streets.
Ongoing stress of the job is a big factor in officer suicides, said Sherri Martin, chairwoman of the national Fraternal Order of Police officer wellness committee
"Day after day, officers see traumatic things," said Martin, an officer with the Enfield, Connecticut police department. "They deal with people at their worst day after day and then they take on the everyday stresses everyone takes on."
During his news conference, Chronister said it was important that his department break down the stigma faced by officers reluctant to come forward to seek treatment out of fear that doing so could jeopardize their careers.
That is an approach the Fraternal Order of Police is encouraging.
"If an officer does not take care of themselves, or has trouble coping and is not getting help, it can build and build and build and lead to problems," Martin said.
If you're thinking about suicide or worried about someone who might be, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to connect with a local crisis center. You can also text the Crisis Text Line by messaging 741741. Police officers can text the word BLUE.
(Times Senior Researcher John Martin and staff writer Paul Guzzo contributed to this report.)
