Update on Mom Who Killed Son & Tried to Kill Other Sons
Maggie
one. From the Ft. Myers News-Press:
Mother kills one son; Bible saves another
Lee deputy wounds woman after rampage in North Fort Myers
By ANDI ATWATER, aatw...@news-press.com
NORTH FORT MYERS — A mother wielding a shotgun killed one son at home and
wounded another at church Sunday before being captured in a shootout with
deputies on the south end of the Caloosahatchee Bridge.
FINAL SCENE:Lee County Sheriff’s deputies closed down the southbound lane of
the Caloosahatchee Bridge Sunday afternoon, September 2, while they investigate
a shooting scene.
Click on image to enlarge.
Leslie Ann Wallace, 39, of 1461 Maranatha Drive, North Fort Myers, tried to
kill all three of her sons during her rampage, authorities said.
Wallace, who was shot during the capture, was in serious condition Sunday night
following surgery.
Investigators say they don’t know why Wallace went on the rampage but hinted
depression could be a factor.
Wallace killed her 6-year-old son, James, Sunday morning while he watched TV in
the family room, Lee County sheriff’s investigators said.
Wallace then drove to New Wine Ministries church at 903 Pondella Road. She
arrived at 10:29 a.m. and coaxed her 16-year-old son, Kenny, from the church
and shot him with a 16-gauge shotgun, Sheriff Rod Shoap said.
“It couldn’t have been my Mom,” Kenny Wallace told WINK-TV. “Her eyes.
The brief second that I got a look, it wasn’t hers.”
A covered Bible that Kenny Wallace clutched in his arms when his mother pulled
the trigger apparently saved his life, authorities said.
Wallace then drove to the Pizza Hut at 13190 U.S. 41, just south of Hancock
Bridge Parkway, where her eldest son, Greg, 19, was working. RELATED STORIES:
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Wallace called 911 at 10:41 a.m. from an outside pay phone and told police she
had killed her 6-year-old son.
She tried to lure her son Greg from the restaurant, but authorities already had
warned him to stay put.
“He told communications that he would go out and calm her down, but we had
people on the phone telling him not to go outside,” Cpl. Mike Scott said.
Leslie Wallace, who also worked at the Pizza Hut as a delivery person, at one
point aimed her shotgun at the restaurant’s manager but didn’t shoot,
investigators said.
Deputies by then had located Leslie Wallace, and when she pulled out of the
Pizza Hut in her Geo Metro and headed south over the Caloosahatchee Bridge,
four deputies in marked cars were trailing her.
At the foot of the bridge, near downtown Fort Myers, another deputy blocked the
road, forcing Wallace to stop.
When Wallace got out of her car, she aimed the shotgun toward the line of
deputies behind her.
Jerry Kuhn of Fort Myers was driving his Oldsmobile Aurora behind Wallace when
he saw the train of squad cars and pulled over.
“My wife started screaming,” Kuhn said. “I pushed her head down as
(Wallace) took a shot that went right over my car.”
Kuhn said deputies converged on Wallace and shot her.
“They were extremely efficient,” he said. “When she went down, she fired
another shot that went in the air and then officers kicked the gun away from
her and handcuffed her.”
The rear windows in Wallace’s turquoise Geo were shattered.
Deputy Chuck Taggart, 34, an 11-year sheriff’s office veteran, fired the
shots that wounded Wallace.
UNBEARABLE NEWS:Bill Wallace, husband of Leslie Wallace, and his mother,
Kathleen Wallace, sit in a neighbor’s yard across the street from their home
on Sunday after learning that Leslie Wallace is accused of killing her
6-year-old son and wounding her 16-year-old son.
Click on image to enlarge.
Her injuries were not life-threatening, authorities said.
The shootings took hours to piece together.
Wallace had a prescription for anti-depressants, investigators said.
Wallace, her husband, Bill, 44, and their three sons lived with Bill’s
mother, Kathleen Wallace, 77.
The family had moved into the Maranatha Drive house in March after Bill’s
father died earlier this year, authorities and neighbors said.
The white house with red trim sat in disarray Sunday, a curtain spilling
outside an open window frame.
Yellow police tape surrounded the two-bedroom house while Bill and Kathleen
Wallace sat in the shade in a neighbor’s yard.
Investigators kept the Wallaces out of their home as they waited for a search
warrant.
The body of 6-year-old James wasn’t removed until 7:32 p.m.
Investigators seemed to concentrate mostly in the living room of the Wallace
house. At 8:45 p.m., they started taking out evidence in plastic and paper
bags. One plastic bag contained what appeared to be several pill bottles.
Ten minutes later, investigators carried out about four rifles and put them in
the back of one of the patrol cars.
Two women arrived on the scene at 7:45 p.m. and said they were friends of the
family. They wouldn’t comment to the media. One of the investigators went
inside the house and returned with several hangers full of clothes, including a
sweater and a pastel plaid dress. He gave them to the women.
Through the open front door of the house, about six bottles of Diet Coke could
be seen on the dining room table. A mylar balloon spun slowly. The message on
the balloon read, “Get Well Soon.”
Investigators said Bill and Leslie Wallace had argued over finances Sunday
morning before Bill took his mother to the doctor.
Kenny Wallace left for church and Greg Wallace went to work at Pizza Hut.
James was alone with his mother when she took one of several guns that were in
the house and shot him, authorities said.
“My little brother was like my best friend,” Kenny Wallace told WINK-TV.
“He never did anything to really make anybody mad. He was just a kid.”
Capt. Richard Chard said Leslie Wallace was an 18-year veteran of the Marine
Corps and knew how to use a weapon.
“She knew her firearms and she was a good shot,” he said. “She was raised
around guns.”
She used a bolt-action shotgun to kill her son and fire at the other, Shoap
said.
Kenny Wallace suffered minor cuts when some shot grazed one of his arms,
investigators said.
Neighbors said Bill and Leslie Wallace mostly kept to themselves, although
their older sons often played basketball with neighborhood teen-agers.
Marsha Boswell, 44, who lives across the street from the Wallaces, said she
often helped out the elder Wallaces before the family moved in.
She said Leslie Wallace was moody and Boswell knew when to stay out of her way.
“You could tell when it was better just to back off and not talk to her,”
Boswell said. “I just never thought it would come to this.”
Maggie
"The interview with Connie Chung was very helpful here - to show the world he's
a jerk." - David Gergen on Gary Condit.
Maggie
who's at fault. From the Ft. Myers News-Press:
Those who know family at a loss for answers
By MARK S. KRZOS, mkr...@news-press.com
NORTH FORT MYERS — Friends, neighbors and a teacher said they are trying to
understand how Leslie Ann Wallace could shoot and kill her youngest son and
then try to kill another son.
Wallace, of 1461 Maranatha Drive, North Fort Myers, shot and killed her
6-year-old son, James, then drove to New Wine Ministries on Pondella Road and
shot and wounded her 16-year-old son, Kenny, authorities said.
Wallace then tried unsuccessfully to lure her eldest son, Greg, out of work.
Her rampage ended in Fort Myers when she was wounded in a shootout with
deputies.
Brandy Vandegrift, 19, worked with Greg and his mother at the North Fort Myers
Pizza Hut. “They’re both friends of mine,” she said.
Greg didn’t know what happened until deputies informed him that his mother
killed his youngest brother and shot his other brother Kenny, Vandegrift said.
“The manager said he was in a lot of shock.”
Leslie Wallace was a hard worker, very open-minded and dreamed about living in
a five-story home inside a gated community, Vandegrift said. “I just saw her
yesterday (Saturday) and she seemed real happy — she just had her hair
done.”
Vandegrift said she and Leslie Wallace would frequently talk about her sons and
how much she cared for them. “She also told me that she and her husband would
have disagreements about his mother,” Vandegrift said. “She said that she
was causing them problems.”
Bill, Leslie and the three boys moved into Kathleen Wallace’s Maranatha Drive
house in March after Bill’s father died earlier this year.
The Wallaces lived in Lexington Park, Md., for three years before moving to
North Fort Myers. Several neighbors who lived near the Wallaces in Maryland did
not remember them.
Yancey Palmer, 28, a North Fort Myers High School math teacher and neighbor,
said he knows Kenny Wallace well.
“Since he lives on the same street and goes to the same school where I teach,
I see him quite often,” said Palmer, who teaches pre-calculus and
advanced-placement calculus. “He’s a quiet kid and very intelligent. He’s
in the very advanced classes at North.”
When school was out, Kenny Wallace could often be seen playing basketball and
football with other kids on the street, Palmer said. “He didn’t discuss his
family too much. It’s a shock to everyone.”
Palmer didn’t associate with Kenny Wallace’s parents. “I talked to the
dad after they moved in. They were doing some landscaping and I helped him move
a tree,” Palmer said. “The mom, I never talked to her. She was sort of
strange — kind of reclusive.”
Shirley Albert didn’t know the Wallaces personally but said Sunday’s events
turned the neighborhood upside down.
“It’s usually quiet — nothing like today,” she said. “There was a lot
of commotion. Everyone’s in a state of shock.”
Patty Bolton lives across the street and a few houses down from the Wallaces.
She was reading the paper on her lanai when she saw a fire truck arrive and
knew something was up. At first, Bolton thought it was the elder Wallace,
Kathleen, because she has a history of health problems.
“It’s a shame,” Bolton said. “It’s a nice, quiet neighborhood.
You’d never image something like this would happen here.”