Christopher Bobby Rowell, Hilliard, Florida man shoots three women dead, including his wife, with 5 year old daughter surviving as blood soaked girl makes it to neighbors to alert them of murder-suicide. Female victims id as Marissa Leara Rowell, Sandra Gayle Fogarty, Alisha Lael Fogarty.
A Hilliard, Florida man is reported to have killed three women then himself while sparing a 5 year old girl who alerted neighbours of the bloodshed after banging on their doors, Thursday night.
Nassau County authorities descending on the scene, where according to a Facebook release, said they found three women dead and a man dying next to an assault-style rifle in the home on West 12th Avenue just on 8 p.m.
Hilliard murder-suicide: dad shoots wife, two women dead then self, 5 year old daughter survives
The gunman was identified as Christopher Bobby Rowell, 34, with the three female victims identified as the shooter’s wife, Marissa Leara Rowell, 32, Sandra Gayle Fogarty, 71, and Alisha Lael Fogarty, 33 according to Jacksonville.com.
Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said the three women were related but did not say how. It was later divulged the surviving 5 year old girl was the daughter of the gunman and the wife he shot dead.
Leeper described Christopher Rowell shooting his first victim in the dining room, a second female victim in the bathroom, before shooting his final victim in the bedroom of the home.
Rowell then moved to the living room and shot himself in the head, Leeper said.
The suspect who was found with a pulse was flown to a local hospital where he was described as clinically dead but kept alive for the purposes of organ transplant, First Coast News reported.
Domestic violence cited
Leeper said the apparent murder-suicide was ‘sad; its tragic; its heartbreaking and was totally, totally unnecessary.’ But if there is one positive, he said, it’s that the 5-year-old girl survived after one of the women shoved her into a bathroom for safety.
‘The child said she was in the back of the house, heard a gunshot,’ Leeper said during a Friday news conference. ‘She came down the hallway, saw a female on the floor in the living room/dining room area — another female grabbed her and put her in the bathroom. When that individual was shot, she got blood splattered on her.’
‘[She is a] very strong, brave, beautiful girl,’ Leeper said of the 5 year old girl. ‘She is with other relatives and is safe…She’s certainly been through a traumatic experience that you want no child to go through.’
‘We just pray for her, she’s going to need a lot of love, a lot of support, and a lot of help in the next few years,’ Leeper said.
The sheriff said investigators have determined the shooting was a domestic violence incident with Leeper saying there hadn’t been any prior domestic-related calls to the home.
He said he wasn’t aware of any mental health issues with Rowell but noted there were other loaded weapons in the home. Nassau County court records show only two minor issues with Rowell, the most recent a county ordinance violation of dogs at large in 2015 and the other a charge of sale or delivery of cannabis in 2013 that wasn’t prosecuted due to a pretrial intervention agreement.
Property records show Rowell and his wife purchased the 27148 W. 12th Ave. home in 2023. His wife’s Facebook states they married in 2017 and had a daughter in 2020. Her last post was in July 2024. Christopher Rowell’s Facebook profile image is of a skeletal figure flipping a middle finger on terrorism as well as an image of a Confederate flag. It states he went to Yulee High School and his last post was in February 2024.
There were no prior calls for service to the home that Leeper was aware of at the time, nor were there any court filings involving the family in Nassau County.
