Another Petaluma Tragedy - Husband Kills Wife and Commits Suicide

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This is my hometown. I went to school with these people. Kim was a wonderful woman, a teacher, & loving mother of 4 children. Our little town is devastated. Mr. Zimmerman was also my divorce atty. Lots of love and prayers to both families & to Petaluma, CA.


A Petaluma woman's visit to a divorce attorney Sunday afternoon ended in violence when, police said, her estranged husband shot and fatally wounded her on a downtown side street before killing himself.

Double Shooting in Petaluma
The 2 p.m. shooting happened in front of 10 Keller St., a small office building where the woman had been visiting the attorney, said Petaluma police Lt. Tim Lyons.

Police did not release the names of the two people involved or confirm their marital status, but friends of the family identified them as Kevin Conover, 41, and Kim Conover, 43.

Kevin Conover died at 5 p.m. at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. Police identified him as the shooter and said his wound appears to have been self-inflicted.

Kim Conover was hospitalized in critical condition and died at 9 p.m. Sunday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

She was a second-grade teacher at Meadow Elementary School and mother of four children, including a twin boy and girl younger than than 2 years old that she had with her husband, and two teenage girls.

Kevin Conover graduated from Petaluma High School in 1988, a year after Kim Conover.

Friends of the couple who were at the shooting scene Sunday said the pair had been experiencing marital troubles. Some said they were in the process of getting a divorce.

The two had apparently arrived separately to the office on Keller Street. Kevin Conover's car was parked in a lot nearby while Kim Conover's car was parked in front of the office.

When police arrived, they found the two lying in the street and dragged them to safety, believing that a third person may have been involved.

Police at the scene later identified that third person as Jeff Zimmerman, the divorce attorney who met with Kim Conover, and who police said witnessed the shooting. Zimmerman was led away for questioning in handcuffs, a procedure police described as routine in such cases.

No other person was believed to be involved, Lyons said.

A revolver used in the shooting was found on the sidewalk outside the law office. Blood stains from the victims marked the sidewalk and road. The number of shots fired was unknown.

Police and sheriff's deputies cordoned off a half block area of Keller Street, where the women's clothing cut off by paramedics was left in the street.

Lyons reported that the couple's children — he did not say who or how many — were in the area at the time of the shooting, but were unhurt and taken in by authorities.

Brian Bakalar, a longtime friend of Kevin Conover's who arrived at the scene hours after the shooting, said Kim Conover had moved out of the couple's house and was living with her parents in Petaluma.

At a dinner Friday night, Bakalar said Kevin Conover was upset with the situation. But there was no sign his friend was contemplating anything like Sunday's shooting, Bakalar said.

Other bystanders said the violence had shattered a quiet day downtown.

“It was this beautiful spring day,” said Sonoma County Supervisor David Rabbitt, who was at a supermarket less than a block away at the time of the shooting and watched the police response unfold. “It makes you pause.”

Lyons, the police lieutentant, called the violent incident “rare.” He said the last homicide in Petaluma was two years ago.

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The California woman police say was shot dead by her estranged husband last week was reportedly denied an emergency restraining order just six days before her murder.

Kim Conover, 43, was killed Sunday outside her divorce attorney’s office in downtown Petaluma, Calif., by her 41-year-old husband, who then turned the gun on himself.

“I think she was reaching out and asking for steps and working through her attorney and working with the Police Department,” Lt. Tim Lyons, a Petaluma police spokesperson, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Less than a week earlier, Conover, an elementary school teacher, requested an emergency protective order against her husband, claiming he had assaulted her, Lyons said.

Her husband denied the account, but police pursued a lesser order, called an emergency stay-away. It was also rejected when a judge found no evidence that Conover was in immediate danger, authorities said.

Conover left behind 21-month-old twins she had with her husband, as well as two daughters, ages 12 and 15, from a previous marriage, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The two had a history with the Petaluma police, who had responded to calls regarding the couple five times in the past year.

Most were complaints of domestic abuse, but there was one allegation that Conover’s husband has pushed one of her older daughters. No arrests were ever made, according to the newspaper.

Friends and family said Conover was struggling to get out of a bad marriage, but her husband wouldn’t let her go.

“She was trying to raise her kids, and being with him was not the best way she could do that,” an unidentified family member told Petaluma Patch.

“She was doing her best to get away from him and just trying to put her kids first.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1065156