Crime and Policing in Florida

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office says 47-year-old Jason Kenney fatally shot his wife, 38-year-old Crystal Roure, and critically wounded his 13-year-old stepdaughter in their Highland City, Florida home late on Dec. 22, 2025, after an argument when Roure said she did not want to watch the end of a Monday Night Football game. Investigators say Roure yelled for her 12-year-old son to flee to a neighbor’s house and call 911, and responding deputies found her shot in the head in the living room, her daughter hit twice while in bed, and a 1‑year‑old asleep unharmed in a crib. Sheriff Grady Judd says the teen later recounted begging Kenney not to shoot, and deputies recovered an undated letter in which Roure accused him of drinking and using cocaine again and wrote that “this is not the way a family should be.” Kenney allegedly called his sister afterward to say he had done “something really bad” and would not go to jail, then drove to his late father’s property in Lake Wales, where he died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot as officers arrived. Relatives told detectives Kenney had been abusing Roure for some time, though the sheriff’s office had no prior domestic-violence calls and Kenney had no criminal record, underscoring how lethal household violence can erupt without a visible prior paper trail.