A domestic dispute ended in suicide Tuesday morning after a
husband punched his wife in the face and tried to break her neck.
He then led police on a six-mile chase and ultimately shot himself
to death after a six-hour standoff, authorities said.
A domestic dispute ended in suicide Tuesday morning after a husband punched his wife in the face and tried to break her neck. He then led police on a six-mile chase and ultimately shot himself to death after a six-hour standoff, authorities said.
The incident began at 3:10 a.m. when police went to a house at 17430 Lakeview Drive in the Holiday Lake Estates neighborhood in the eastern foothills.
Someone in the house had called 911 and left the line open; police dispatchers could hear a disturbance in the background. The couple, police reported, were separated and the husband was living at the Maple Leaf RV Park at the south end of the city.
Morgan Hill police had been notified that they were responding to a domestic violence call, that the suspect, Chad Church, 41, had left the scene driving a black Chevrolet pickup and that he was possibly armed with a gun or knife. According to Lt. Joe Sampson, officers saw the truck westbound on East Dunne Avenue and gave chase. At one point Church doubled back and caused officers to take evasive action to avoid a collision.
Church continued to evade police and drove to the Maple Leaf RV Park. He left his vehicle in front of space #202 where he lived and ran inside, saying he would get a gun and shoot the officers.
Two shots from a Glock .45 caliber handgun were fired through the RV’s window, Sampson said, in the officers’ direction but no one was hit. Police cordoned off the area and called Morgan Hill’s SWAT team to the scene at about 4 a.m. Shortly after that, at about 4 a.m., the California Highway Patrol and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department were enlisted to help cordon off the area and evacuate residents to a safe area.
Sampson said residents were taken to the park’s clubhouse where management made coffee and helped the evacuees to be comfortable.
The MHPD SWAT team set up an inner perimeter while members of the Morgan Hill Hostage Negotiations Team tried to make contact with Church by cellular telephone and a public address system. He did not respond.
Earlier Church had called his brother and his wife, telling them he was going to shoot himself, Sampson said.
MHPD called for the Gilroy Police Department’s armored vehicle, which drove to the front of the RV. Police continued to attempt to contact Church to no avail. When Church did not reply, they threw tear gas through a window. When officers wearing Kevlar vests forced the door open they found Church in a back bedroom, dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
The Santa Clara County Coroner’s office described the wounds as “a contact gunshot wound to the chest.” Time of death was listed as “before 9 a.m.”
“He had been despondent over the separation,” Sampson said. The incident ended at 9 a.m.
Sampson said the wife was treated and released by paramedics at her home. The couple’s three children, ages 2, 3 and 4, were asleep in their bedrooms during the early-morning incident on Lakeview Drive and remain with their mother. They were not hurt.
The couple owned a successful painting business, Sampson said and that there had been no prior calls about domestic abuse involving the Churches.
