Derek Thebo murder suicide: Michigan dad kills 3 year old son then self amid bitter divorce as wife claims in protection order her husband threatening to hurt and family members months earlier.
A Michigan father reportedly shot his 3 year old son dead before killing himself amid a bitter divorce battle.
Derek Thebo, 32, is alleged to have told his estranged wife, Katie that he would kill her and her children earlier this year, according to a Police Protection Order (PPO) filed with the Kent County Circuit Court in Michigan.
‘He threatened to kill me, my children, and my family, and to commit suicide afterward,’ she wrote in court documents cited by Fox 17.
‘He rattled off the names of my family members and said he knew where they worked, he knew when they were home, and that he could get to them and hurt them.’
Thebo and the couple’s three-year-old son Dylan were later found dead as they were going through divorce and child custody proceedings.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde character
The father and son were discovered inside their home in Lowell Township, Michigan, on September 1 by Kent County deputies. The episode occurred during a requisite child visitation between the father and son Mlive reported.
Investigators say Thebo shot and killed his son before turning the gun on himself in a suspected murder suicide.
Katie Thebo – who also has a daughter from a previous relationship – according to the filed protection order expected her husband to do something violent, with her fears being raised just two days after their wedding four years ago.
In the court filings, she described Derek as a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde character, and that every time they would fight he would make death threats, she wrote.
‘Within 48 hours of getting married everything changed,’ she said in a request for a personal-protection order.
She said he threatened to kill her, their children, her family and then himself, even saying he would save her children ‘for last’.
Katie also claimed in the documents that she received a gift for Mother’s Day which included a fraught message, despite a mutual no-contact order being in place.
Threatened wife if she ever left marriage
The message on the gift read: ‘You will be my last’, she said.
Earlier, a judge granted the restraining order – but it was dissolved on March 22 after the no-contact order had been agreed, according to WOOD-TV.
At the time, Derek denied it or said he didn’t mean it, stating in divorce documents that he loved nothing more than his son.
The father had been a corrections officer in Michigan, but was fired in 2019. After quitting a new post at a Wisconsin prison in January this year, matters between the husband and wife worsened.
‘One time we were having a conversation about a news story where a woman drove her car off a bridge killing her and her children,’ Dylan’s mother wrote in the request for the protective order.
‘He said something about the woman was probably trying to save them from something worse or protecting them from someone else. This led to him threatening that if I ever left him that he would protect his son from whatever I might expose him to outside of our marriage.
Michigan dad suffered from PTSD according to wife
‘To me this was a threat to kill our son if I ever left him. He would repeat this threat when we would get into an argument and I would leave.’
Katie said her husband had become stressed after he applied for a job with the federal Bureau of Prisons. The wife believed that Dylan suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after working in ‘super-max’ prisons.
Read a GoFundMe fundraiser for the slain 3 year old boy: ‘he was an amazing kiddo who was full of energy, loved being around family and friends, and always brought a smile to everyone’s face with his crazy antics and sayings.
‘Dylan loved Paw Patrol, excavators, cars and trucks, and singing and dancing. Most of all Dylan loved his momma and big sister.’
As of Monday the fund-drive had raised over $25,505.
