Family never thought killer in murder-suicide would have guns
By Paige Dickerson, Peninsula Daily News
Print This |
Email This
Recent Headlines
Port Angeles to stay in FEMA fight -- 2/7/12 -10:52 PM
Port Angeles City Council approves final esplanade plan -- 2/7/12 -10:42 PM
(No heading) -- 2/7/12 -10:32 PM
SPORTS: Webb sparks Sequim to 58-51 win over Port Angeles for second place in boys basketball action Tuesday night -- 2/7/12 -10:22 PM
MV Coho ferry back on the job today after maintenance hiatus -- 2/7/12 -05:42 PM
Jeffrey Calvert, 41, of Bellingham kicked in the door to 35-year-old Christin Stock's Oak Street home in Port Angeles, shot her to death and then killed himself with a second gun on Sunday afternoon.
"I couldn't imagine [Calvert] being violent or having a gun," Dr. Heather Irwin, Stock's mother, said in an interview.
"I don't think it entered into anyone's mind."
Family members knew Calvert was harassing Stock, Irwin said, but they had never heard her say she was afraid of him.
"Her best friend was starting to worry, but the one side of [Calvert] was very pleasant," Irwin said, "and I don't think Christin saw the other piece until she moved to Bellingham.
"I don't think it's something that we could have prevented unless she'd never met him."
Stock and her children lived in a house owned by her parents. Irwin is a doctor in Olympia.
Petition filed
Stock had filed a petition for a protective order against Calvert in Clallam County District Court on Feb. 20, the same day that a King County court vacated a 1995 conviction of Calvert for stalking a different woman.
That conviction had prohibited Calvert from owning firearms.
Port Angeles and Bellingham police, acting on a search warrant, searched Calvert's Bellingham home on Wednesday.
Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher said he hopes that results of the search will provide some answers to Calvert's motive and whether he had planned the shooting before breaking in on Sunday.
Gallagher is to meet today with the officers who searched the home to find out what they discovered.
Children 'doing well'
Irwin, a physician, is caring for Stock's two daughters — who are 9 and 11 years old — along with the help of the children's father, who lives in Seattle.
She said that the girls are "doing well" and have returned to their classes.
Stock had hoped to raise her children and become a full-time teacher in Port Angeles after gaining her teaching credentials, Irwin said.
Stock had dated Calvert off and on for about two years before moving into his Bellingham home.
She lived there from July to October last year before breaking up with him and leaving.
Since she left, he had tried to re-establish the relationship by sending excessive gifts, cards and graphic home videos of himself, she said in the petition for the protective order.
It appeared that Calvert had been stalking Stock for several weeks, and had stayed off and on at the Red Lion Hotel, Gallagher said.
Weapons, ammunition
During a search of Calvert's body and a rented gray Toyota Camry, police found a number of items suggesting premeditation — two sets of handcuffs, a stun gun, a GPS unit, binoculars, duct tape, a knife, pepper spray and ammunition.
When Calvert broke into the house, Stock called 9-1-1 in a call too garbled for dispatchers to understand.
Moments later, her 9-year -old daughter phoned the emergency number, identified Calvert and said he had a gun and was threatening her mother.
The girls fled upstairs, hid in a closet and did not see the shootings, Gallagher said.
Police say Calvert shot Stock with a semiautomatic .40 caliber handgun that jammed, then shot himself with a .357-caliber pistol.
Police heard the first shot as they arrived, and the second shot as they ran toward the house.
They rushed inside and found both Stock and Calvert dead of gunshot wounds.
'No idea'
"We had absolutely no idea that this kind of thing was going on with Jeff," said the human resources manager at the Bellingham Community Food Co-Op, where Calvert worked as an assistant finance manager.
"It's hard to lose someone you work with, but all the details of it have been really overwhelming for people here," Deborah Craig said.
"The main concern is for the children of the victim."
Since the murder-suicide, the business owners are considering initiating background checks on prospective employees, Craig said.
Calvert, a full-time employee, hadn't missed any work days or taken vacation time this month, she said.
Stock had filed her anti-harassment order in Clallam County District Court just four days before the shooting.
It had not been granted. A hearing date had not been set.
Once an anti-harassment petition is filed, District Court Judge Rick Porter reviews it within a day or two and determines whether a temporary emergency order is necessary.
A temporary order is granted without serving papers to the offending party until the hearing.
In this case, Stock did not request a temporary order, and one was not issued.
A hearing — in which both Calvert and Stock would have had the chance to share their sides — would have been scheduled, probably for early March, after Calvert had been served legal papers.
Fund set up for school
A MEMORIAL FUND in honor of Christin Stock, a Port Angeles mother of two who was shot and killed on Sunday, was established for the Port Angeles School District's Jefferson Elementary School.
Stock, 35, often had worked as a substitute teacher at the school.
The fund, set up by Stock's family — also of Port Angeles — is at First Federal Savings & Loan, 105 W. Eighth St., Port Angeles.
The family decided to set up the fund, said Stock's mother Dr. Heather Irwin, because the family is financially stable and would prefer to have donations go to the school where Stock had fulfilled her student teaching requirement as she worked to become a teacher.
Stock also was president of the school's parent-teacher organization in 2003-04.
_________
The Bellingham Herald contributed to this report.
Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: February 27. 2008 9:00PM