A Texas man allegedly killed his ex-girlfriend and shot one of her relatives before killing himself on Tuesday only hours after the woman asked for protection from police, saying she had feared for her safety, according to television station KIII.
Heather Coglaiti, 33, went to Corpus Christi Police Department (CCPD) on Monday complaining that her ex-boyfriend, Jose Calderon, 46, had slashed her tires and threatened her, according to KIII.
Calderon reportedly agreed to come into the police station and told authorities his relationship with Coglaiti had always been volatile, chiefly because of her.
“We’ve done this a lot through the whole two years. We go back and forth, we’ll fight like this and she knows I won’t punch her but she punches the hell out of me in the face and she’ll bite, do whatever,” Calderon said in a videotaped interview with police that was released to the TV station.
“She said, ‘I’m so scared you’re gonna kill me,’” he added, dismissing the idea, according to the television station. Calderon was soon allowed by police to leave, according to KIII.
About 16 hours later on Tuesday, Calderon allegedly shot and killed Coglaiti at an apartment before turning the gun on himself, KIII reported. Police said they also found another man, believed to be Coglaiti’s relative, at the apartment with a gunshot wound, according to the television station.
That same day, the police department’s Criminal Investigative Division Captain Hollis Bowers said that the department had done all it could despite Coglaiti’s pleas for protection, adding that the law requires “a certain level of violence” for police to make an arrest, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times newspaper.
“She was trying to keep him out of her life,” a neighbor told KIII. “I know she went to the police yesterday.”
Watch the KIII report below:
h/t RawStory
Horrible, horrible story, but I don’t think the police were negligent in their handling of the case. They brought the guy in and questioned him, he BS’ed his way through it, and they let him go. As long as guns are everywhere in our society, this kind of shit is going to keep happening. And yeah, he could have hit her with an iron bar, etc. etc., but guns just make it too damn easy.
some people have a damned good reason to own a handgun for self-defense, and this is one case where the victim should have armed herself. A firearm in the house is dangerous, but if I lived in a bad neighborhood or I knew someone was stalking me, yeah I’d have a handgun.
My sister went through this exact same thing (except the murder part at the end) with the San Marcos (TX) police. Slashed tires, stalking, death threats etc. The police did the same thing, the ex did the same thing. It only ended when he threatened her with a gun on campus and was expelled and told coming on campus would be grounds for trespassing charges. He left and went to another college (he was a grad student). There were charges placed against him, by the campus, because the police wouldn’t listen to my sister. Felony terroristic threats. The prosecutor cut a deal with him and he got deferred adjudication (sp?). He once told my sister (as the threats got worse) he liked dating undergrads because they were too young to know any better. He is currently teaching biology at a Tier 2 university in Texas (I was informed by the police that identifying him publicly would violate the plea agreement with the prosecutor, which neither I nor my sister were party to, and I could be charged).
Police departments, in general, don’t seem to care about this sort of thing.
apparently Alcee Hastings is right… Texas thinks its OK to tell women how many and what size dildos they can keep but men are free to own as many phallic substitutes as needed in order to keep their significant others in line…
police can’t help unless there is enough violence for someone to actually be killed…
Texas law nails it again.