[deanmine]

A veteran Las Vegas cop apparently shot his ex-policewoman wife and their 5-year-old son in the head before he turned the gun on himself.

The Clark County Coroner's Office said Kathryn Michelle Walters, 46; and Maximilian Walters, 5; each died of a gunshot wound to the head in their Boulder City, Nev., home on Monday.

As police surrounded the home, Hans Walters, 52, an off-duty lieutenant with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, set fire to the house and then fatally shot himself, according to accounts from the coroner and the Henderson Police Department, which is leading the investigation.

Investigators are combing through Walters' background looking for clues as to what made the 20-year veteran of the police force snap.

His wife, who went by her middle name, Michelle, had been employed by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as a patrol officer from January 1991 until August 2004, according a police spokesman.

The events unfolded Monday morning when Hans Walters called 911 to say he had killed his wife and son, according to a news release from the Henderson Police Department.

Walters, who was not identified by officials until late Tuesday, said he was "going to set his house on fire and harm any officer that came to the home," the news release said.

When Boulder City police arrived, they saw Walters standing in the doorway of the house, appearing to hold a handgun, according to Henderson police.

Walters was uncooperative, police said, and went back into the house, at which point he took his own life.

SWAT officers were called to the scene and entered the home, where they found the three bodies.

The Boulder City and Henderson fire departments were called to the scene to battle the blaze.

"It's sad," a neighbor who lived across the street from the family told ABCNews.com, adding he "didn't really know them."

When Sheriff Douglas Gillespie of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police confirmed the killings, fire and suicide on Monday in a brief news conference, he assured the families and friends of the victims, "We will stand by your side and move through this unspeakable grief and support you any way we can."

[kellyhound]

selfish bastard couldn't handle the divorce i guess

After he opened his presents each year on Christmas morning, five-year-old Maximilian Walters spoke with his aunt on the phone, taking a half-hour to describe each gift in detail. Last year he told her it was the “most wonderful Christmas.” Santa Claus had brought him “everything Polar Express,” from the movie and book to new locomotives for his collection. During the holiday season, he took rides on the Santa Train around his hometown of Boulder City, Nev. He always sat next to the window to look at the sights. Trains fascinated Max, who dressed as a conductor last year for Halloween. The Polar Express and Thomas the Tank Engine were his favorite animations. He could explain the details of different kinds of locomotives and how they operate. “He was a lot smarter than you when it came to the trains. That was a given,” his uncle, Gregg Watkins, told msnbc.com. “You would actually end up learning something.”

Max was the adored center of his mother’s world. She had struggled with infertility for six years before finally giving birth to Max. Kathryn “Michelle” Walters retired from her 15-year career as a police officer to raise him. Max, who attended kindergarten at Andrew Mitchell Elementary School in Boulder City, played in a recreational soccer league. But “if he couldn’t see her, he wasn’t going to play,” Heather Watkins Hirsch, Max’s aunt, told msnbc.com. Consequently, his mother coached the team. When his mother wasn’t pushing him in a stroller while she ran, Max enjoyed snuggling on the couch with her and watching SpongeBob SquarePants. They often traveled together to places in Nevada, Minnesota, and California for marathons and mother-son adventures.

Max was shy and tentative around new people. But once he spent more time around them, he had the “gift for gab,” Watkins Hirsch said. Although he often rethought his dreams for the future, he hoped to become a train conductor, firefighter, or police officer, just like both of his parents.

[kellyhound]

Contribution to the thread by kellyhound:

max.jpg

[Muertaluna]

very sad

[Vanessa12106]

Originally Posted by kellyhound ↗

selfish bastard couldn't handle the divorce i guess

Where did it say they were getting divorced?
Just curious. It was a cunt move either way. Poor little boy.

[RUTHIE7]

He shot his wife because she was living every day in excruciating pain.

I can understand that.

Can't understand why he shot his son though. Maybe he was disabled, also in pain... there is more to this.

If ever I feel sorry for a murderer, its got to be in these cases specifically.

[n4xtube]

Originally Posted by RUTHIE7 ↗

He shot his wife because she was living every day in excruciating pain.

I can understand that.

Can't understand why he shot his son though. Maybe he was disabled, also in pain... there is more to this.

If ever I feel sorry for a murderer, its got to be in these cases specifically.

Are you really this dense?

[SimoneFlen']

From an article dated 21st January 2013:

Nothing seemed unusual with Lt. Hans Walters on Saturday night.

“He didn’t seem out of the ordinary at all,” said one Las Vegas police officer, who asked to be anonymous. “Cops are pretty intuitive. They can tell when something’s wrong with someone.

“He seemed totally fine.”

But two days later, something clearly changed.

Authorities said Walters killed his family, set his Boulder City home ablaze and then killed himself Monday morning.

“You just wonder how and why this could happen,” the officer said.

Sheriff Doug Gillespie acknowledged “it’s human nature” to speculate but asked the public to reserve judgment.

“I urge you to wait and allow the facts to come forward first,” Gillespie said at a brief, morose news conference Monday afternoon.

Boulder City police responded to a call at 8:20 a.m. Monday from a 52-year-old man at 1313 Esther Drive who said he had killed his wife and son and was setting his house on fire. The man also threatened to harm responding officers, Henderson police spokesman Keith Paul said. Henderson police are handling the investigation for the Boulder City department, which lacks resources for such major investigations.

Paul would not confirm that Walters was the man who called police but said the caller was an “off-duty Las Vegas police officer.”

The home is owned by Walters and his wife, Kathryn Michelle Walters, 46.

Gillespie confirmed that the incident involved a Las Vegas police lieutenant with more than 20 years of experience. Hans Walters, 52, was hired in 1991.

When officers responded, the man was outside the house carrying what appeared to be a handgun. He ignored officers’ commands and returned to the burning house, where he apparently killed himself.

Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy confirmed that three bodies were found in the house but did not release the names of the dead.

Walters supervised patrols in the department’s Enterprise Area Command, which serves the southwest valley.

Kathryn Walters also was a Las Vegas police officer. She received a community service award in 1999 and a lifesaving award in 2004. She left the department in 2005.

At the news conference, Gillespie deferred to the Henderson police investigation and refused to take questions out of respect for the victims’ families.

“We will stand by your side and move through this unspeakable grief and support you any way we can,” he said in remarks intended for the families.

The murder-suicide sent shock waves through the Metropolitan Police Department on Monday morning as rumors began swirling.

“Terrible,” one veteran supervisor said.

“I can’t think of a reason for this, where something can get so bad that you’d do this,” another officer said.

The incident also rattled Boulder City.

A neighbor who asked not to be identified said, “It’s horrific. It’s hard to understand what would drive someone to do something like that.”

Authorities took down crime tape blocking off Esther Drive shortly after
5 p.m. The smell of smoke lingered on the block of ranch-style homes.

Neighbor after neighbor told the same story: Gunshots weren’t heard; the family was reclusive, so much so that several neighbors didn’t know a child lived in the house.

Some neighbors said Hans Walters would give them the occasional hello as he went to his mailbox.

“He was normal. He was nice,” said Alyssa Gossard, 21. “He would wave to us every now and then.”

Much of the roof of the family’s house caved in because of the blaze, and the portion of the roof above the garage collapsed. A charred sport utility vehicle sat inside the garage.

Three women, who declined to comment or give their names, placed a vase with yellow and white flowers on the sidewalk in front of the Walters’ home. They also placed a red stuffed animal next to the vase.

They said a prayer for the family. “Please let (Kathryn) Michelle hold onto Max in their next journey,” a woman said.

Patrick Brewer was getting coffee about 8:45 a.m. when he looked outside and noticed smoke coming from his neighbor’s house.

He was startled when he saw that first responders were not firefighters but Boulder City police officers carrying rifles and moving with caution.

SWAT units with Henderson and North Las Vegas police also responded to the burning house.

One neighbor said he heard an officer yell to “put your gun down” two or three times.

Brewer, 44, said he moved his family to the bedroom.

Firefighters arrived soon after the officers and began dousing the flames, even as the officers continued to circle the house with guns drawn.

“The house was definitely not secure, let’s put it that way,” he said. “I realized I was looking at something that was definitely not normal.”

Brewer said he heard a person yell, “I did not do this,” as authorities circled the house, but he wasn’t sure who spoke.

Karlee Kovacevich, 18, lives four houses away. She said that shortly after 9 a.m. she saw flames 15 feet high shooting from her neighbor’s roof. The house was surrounded by police and firefighters.

She said she later saw what appeared to be the body of a child under a white sheet beneath a canopy set up in the street.

In the five years Brewer lived next to the family, he never had a real conversation with them.

He didn’t know Walters was a police lieutenant. He also never saw children around the house.

“If I saw him in person, I could say, ‘Yeah, that’s my neighbor,’ but I couldn’t even describe him to you right now,” Brewer said. “It’s a pretty friendly, warm neighborhood, but I’ve never spoken to him.”

David Gossard, Alyssa’s father, said that after an officer told him a neighbor might be armed and suicidal, he called his family, prompting some of them to run out of their house without shoes.

Gossard said that despite the tragedy, life goes on. He said Boulder City is no different than anywhere else because murder-suicides happen everywhere.

“You just never know when people are going to snap,” Gossard said.

From an article dated 30th January 2014:

BOULDER CITY — The home at 1313 Esther Drive where off-duty Las Vegas Police Lt. Hans Walters shot and killed his wife and 5-year-old son before setting the house on fire and shooting himself last year has been demolished.

Demolition of the four-bedroom house, left vacant with a collapsing roof for the past year, was completed Monday.

Next-door neighbor Sally Gray said she was “excited” to see an excavator parked on the property when she arrived home from work earlier this month. In the months after the Jan. 21, 2013 murder-suicide the house had a “nasty, burnt smell” and it would shed debris onto her property, she said.

“Every time the wind would blow I’d end up with burnt debris on my driveway,” she said.

But even after the smell went away, she said it was difficult seeing the ruin, which still had personal items visible in the front entryway and backyard, she said.

“It’s just hard to live here and look at this every day,” Gray said. “When you see it, you’re reminded of what took place here.”

Despite neighborhood complaints to the city, the house couldn’t act because ownership was disputed by family members in probate court, said Brok Armantrout, the city’s community development director.

“We didn’t have the legal right to demo the house,” Armantrout said, because the city is required to notify the owner of record prior to demolition.

The city council planned to discuss declaring the house a public nuisance but a court-appointed administrator for the Walters’ estate acted first, hiring a contractor to do the work, Armantrout said.

The city issued a demolition permit to the company, Top Notch Services, on Jan. 21, coincidentally the one-year anniversary of the murder-suicide. Walters shot and killed his wife, Kathryn Michelle Walters, and son, Maximilian Walters, the morning of Jan. 21, 2013. After calling 911, he set the house on fire and shot himself in the head.

Walters told the 911 dispatcher he killed his wife “because she’s in such chronic pain from her neck and back, and on more medicine that she’s not going to survive.”

The investigation, led by the Henderson Police Department, also revealed that Hans Walters was under increasing financial and emotional stress.

[Davis916]

I think Police psychological testing still needs some more development. I wonder how many holes he filled with bodies over the years in Vegas. Remember the movie, Casino?

[RUTHIE7]

When you love someone with all your heart and you have to watch them live in the worst pain you can imagine.. and they live like that every day, ALL DAY... and there is just nothing anyone can do for them.

I can't judge this man.

But why take his son's life? Was it because he'd seen what life would be like living in the 'system.' Was he afraid of the psychological damage and the mental pain and anguish his actions would cause his son?

This is a really tough situation.

(If you truly put yourself into this mans shoes, 100% without judgement, you can see how this could have happened)

Terrible tragedy.

Health services in USA need to be better than they've ever been. In the UK you don't pay for treatment . We pay for medicines only. Its £9 for a prescription. All xrays, operations, doctors appointments, etc, are all free of charge.

This enables EVERYONE (rich or poor) the same level of initial diagnosis and full treatment.

The only thing we pay for is the medicine we then buy from the chemist/pharmacies after the diagnosis, operation etc.

The USA may be a 1st world country, but its health care system is 3rd world.

Even a system like 'car insurance' would be something. Where you pay every month into your 'HEALTH insurance' - something that will cover you and your family if something happens.

I dont know. If someone is suffering like this mans wife was, to the extent he felt like he had to end her suffering by taking his whole family out... something is wrong with the countries Health care system. Her medications needed to help her. She should have been on something to help the pain. If that didnt work then surgery.

I know that so many Americans suffer because of the cost of Heath Care. It's so sad.