A grieving widow is questioning why a Spotsylvania deputy opened fire on her husband. News4’s Julie Carey reports.
One look at Kenny Carr's study makes it clear that the decorated veteran was proud of his military service: Award after award, first from the Marines, then from the Army, hangs on the wall.
But his family was shattered early on Sunday morning when Carr was shot and killed by a Spotsylvania sheriff's deputy. The Army service member working at Fort Belvoir was shot, according to the sheriff's office, when they saw him pointing a gun at a woman.
That woman, Kenny Carr's wife Devin, is now raising questions about why and how the deputy that killed him opened fire. The single, fatal gunshot was fired from outside the couple's house, through a window.
Devin Carr had been with her husband since 8th grade. She and Kenny were married for 17 years, with two children, including an adoring son.
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"He was very proud. He was so proud of our son," the grieving widow said, through tears. "Our son, he was like, I want to be just like Dad."
Devin says her normally happy, upbeat husband seemed to be recently struggling with signs of PTSD.
On Sunday, when he came home from a visit to Richmond, it was clear he had been drinking.
She says Kenny got loud. When she went downstairs to the theater room the couple has in their home, he later followed her — with a gun.
"He was still just talking loud down there. He was moving his hands and stuff like that. I was really just listening at that point," she said.
Devin didn't realize that someone called 911.
As Devin tried to calm her husband, just after 3 a.m., the deputies arrived. Some came in the front door, while others went to the side of the house.
"It happened so quick. He was talking, and next thing you know, out of nowhere, I saw glass just went flying. When the glass went flying the police busted in," Devin recalled.
"I looked back, and my husband was falling down," Devin said through tears.
A press release from the sheriff's office didn't identify the couple, but says when they arrived, a deputy saw a man pointing a gun at a woman and fired.
Two hours after deputies pulled her from the room, Devin learned her husband was dead.
She says it wasn't until much later that day, when a crew came to pull up the bloody carpet and drywall, that she realized where the gunfire came from, and why the glass had shattered.
The deputy fired through the basement window, Devin says. She's angry, and wants to know why deputies never announced their presence, and never gave a warning to Kenny.
"They did not say nothing," Devin said. "They did not make any requests, they did not say anything at all."
"If you feel like you had to shoot him, he's got other body parts. He had two legs, two arms, anything that said do not kill me, because he did not deserve that."
She didn't answer whether she feared that her husband would shoot her. But Devin believes the press release unfairly portrays her husband as a criminal.
"Because my husband wasn't like that. So I don't think they saved my life. But I do think they took his life," Devin said.
The release described the scene in the Carr's theater room as a "domestic disturbance involving a firearm."
"Once on scene deputies observed an adult male armed with a firearm pointing it at an adult female," the press release reads. "As a result, one the responding deputies fired his department issued firearm striking the subject."
"I feel like my husband did not deserve this. He didn't," Devin said.
A sheriff's office spokesman declined to comment on Devin Carr's concerns. The deputy who fired the fatal shot has been placed on administrative leave.
Virginia State Police are assisting the investigation.
