SMITH COUNTY (KYTX) -- The Smith County Sheriff's Department said Monday that an autopsy proves the deaths of a man and woman near Chandler were the result of a murder suicide. 53-year-old James Malone shot his wife Karen and then killed himself Friday evening at a home on FM 2661.
CBS 19 uncovered new documents Monday showing that James had a long and violent criminal history dating back to 1977. That includes the aggravated assault of a police officer and a murder where James was ultimately convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
When the sun set Friday night investigators said Karen Malone took a chance that her husband James would be gone and returned by herself to her old home. Prior to going, Karen told the sheriff's department she was looking for papers that would help with her divorce. When she arrived, James was there.
James was dead when deputies pulled up, but Karen was still breathing and died an hour later at ETMC in Tyler.
"Pretty much everything's quiet and calm [out here]," Gary Krafft, a neighbor of the Malones, said. "This is a big shock."
Krafft found out what happened after being gone for the weekend. He said six years after moving in the Malones had never caused a problem.
"We talked. Nothing unusual. Just seemed like regular folks," Krafft said. "Never met his wife, Mrs. Malone, but talked to him a couple of times. Just regular, regular people."
Another neighbor whose property backs up to the Malones' told us she was at home on Friday and heard those gun shots. She said its not unusual to hear guns being fired in the area. But those shots sounded different and that's why she called the Sheriff's department.
"Well we see it on a daily basis," Martha Carney, Director of Client Services at the East Texas Crisis Center, said. "We obviously don't see shootings on a daily basis. Hopefully we're preventing those shootings."
Carney said the chances that an abuse victim will be hurt or killed nearly doubles when he or she tries to leave. That means making a clean break can be the difference between life and death, and planning ahead makes it possible.
That can mean taking care of prescription refills so you don't have go home looking for medication or collecting documents you need for a divorce little by little so you're not having to go back into harm's way.
"It is always a possibility that it will be you," Carney said.
A man coming off the Malones' property Monday said he wasn't related to the family and didn't want to talk about what happened.
In recognition of October's status as Domestic Violence Awareness Month the East Texas Crisis Center is having a candlelight vigil in memory of all victims of domestic violence. That's happening Tuesday night at UT Tyler. It starts at 7pm at the bell tower.
