Robert T. Child allegedly shot his wife Anna Child and her boyfriend Jason Hilde dead in Hoodsport, Washington, the day after a judge granted Anna a protection order against him. The 60-year-old faces charges of first-degree murder and burglary. Authorities arrested him the following evening.
Authorities in Mason County, Washington, say Robert T. Child, 60, entered a home in Hoodsport on Tuesday and fatally shot his estranged wife, Anna Child, 46, and her boyfriend, Jason Hilde, 46, with a shotgun before fleeing in his white pickup truck. Deputies found Hilde near the front door with a gunshot wound to the head and Anna on a stairway with gunshot wounds. A shotgun and spent shells were recovered at the scene, according to the Mason County Sheriff's Office, which described the incident as a double homicide tied to domestic violence around 7 p.m. that evening. Child was booked into Mason County Jail on Wednesday on two counts of first-degree murder and burglary. The killings occurred one day after a judge approved a protection order Anna had filed against her husband on March 9. In her petition, she quoted Robert saying, 'If he can't have me, no one will,' and wrote that she 'didn't feel safe.' The couple was also divorcing. Neighbor Caleb McGill, who knew Child, told Seattle NBC affiliate KING he heard the shots, called 911, and confronted the suspect as he left. 'I said, Rob, what … did you do? And he said, 'Dude, they pointed a gun at me, and I killed them,'' McGill recounted, calling it the 'most gruesome thing I've ever seen.' Sheriff Ryan Spurling noted that deputies had not yet served the protection order on Child at the time of the shooting and has ordered an internal review to determine if law enforcement could have prevented the deaths.