A toddler fleeing a heinous murder led authorities to three dead victims and a nearly-dead suspect in a case that a Florida sheriff described as “heartbreaking.”
At around 8 p.m. on Thursday, the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office received a call reporting a suspected gunshot at a home on West 12th Avenue in Hilliard, Florida. Arriving deputies attempted to reach someone inside but received no answer, Sheriff Bill Leeper stated during a press conference on Friday.
The deputies then opened the unlocked front door.
“As the door was open, they observed a female on the floor between the living room and dining room lying in blood,” the Sheriff’s Office explained.
As deputies walked in to ensure there was no immediate danger, they discovered a man “lying on the floor in the living room in a puddle of blood,” according to the sheriff.
The man was apparently holding an SKS-style 7.62 caliber assault weapon next to him.
Deputies resumed their “protective sweep” of the house, discovering a woman in the hallway bathroom “with blood and brain splatter all over the wall and floor,” Leeper added.
The deputies also discovered a third woman, “lying in a pool of blood on the floor in a bedroom across the hall from the bathroom.”
Investigators checked the women and determined that they were “obviously deceased.” The victim, however, “had a slight pulse,” so he was evacuated to a neighboring hospital in Jacksonville.
Investigators suspect the man, identified as 34-year-old Christopher Bobby Rowell, first shot one woman in the living room/dining room area, then another in the bathroom, and last in the bedroom.
“He eventually returned to the living room, where he shot himself in the head,” she said.
Despite the carnage, a 5-year-old girl was able to escape.
A neighbor across the street informed investigators that the child “who was inside the residence at the time of the shooting came to their house, banging on the door and stated the suspect had killed others inside the home,” Leeper explained. The neighbor immediately dialed 911.
The child described the trauma she had undergone. She claimed she was in the back of the house when a gunshot rang out. As she came down the hall, she noticed a woman on the floor between the living and dining rooms.
“Another female grabbed her, put her in the bathroom,” Leeper told me. “When that individual was shot, she got blood splatter on her.”
The sheriff then revealed that it was “some type of domestic incident,” but he did not want to comment further until the inquiry was completed.
Rowell was “clinically deceased” on Friday, and his organs were scheduled to be taken. The victims’ names were not released, but investigators said everyone was connected and the three women were adults, according to independent Jacksonville TV station WJXT.
The child was “safe” with other relatives, according to the sheriff, who described her as “very strong” and “very brave.” Nonetheless, he stated that the encounter had left him “traumatized”.
“If you look at a positive with something like this, this tragic, it’s that the child was not injured, thank God,” Leeper pointed out. “And the shooter had the courage to shoot himself.”
“It’s heartbreaking, and it was completely unnecessary,” the sheriff continued.
A neighbor, who is believed to be a different person from the one who phoned the police, stated that she began her Friday morning by seeing law enforcement checking her backyard, where she discovered a gunshot had struck her home.
“It was crazy to think about,” the neighbor told WTLV, a Jacksonville-based NBC station. “You just don’t hear about this kind of stuff in Hilliard.”
“I knew that it hit,” Gray said of the bullet. “I just didn’t know where, and we knew it didn’t come inside; we were thankful for that.”
Hilliard is located in the far northeast of Florida, roughly 30 miles north of Jacksonville.
