Post by Graveyardbride on Jun 1, 2015 4:17:55 GMT -5
Killer Vet has Checkered Past
COLBERT, Wash. – A 30-year-old decorated Iraq War veteran is accused of shooting three of his in-laws before setting fire to their home Tuesday, May 26, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office said. Roy Murry was arrested Saturday, May 30, after showing up voluntarily to be interviewed by detectives, the Spokesman-Review reports. Murry was charged in the deaths of 59-year-old Terry Canfield, 52-year-old Lisa Canfield and Lisa Canfield’s 23-year-old son, John Constable. They were found dead May 26 after a neighbor reported their house and barn were on fire. Murry is married to Mandy Murry, Lisa Canfield’s daughter. Murry was charged with three counts of premeditated murder and held on $2 million bond, according to the sheriff’s office.
Murry’s wife left home and was planning to divorce him. Police said that Roy Murry’s wife, Mandy, had recently moved into her mother’s home and was planning file for divorce. The couple had been having martial issues, police said. Mandy Murry was not home when the shootings occurred. “It is our belief that he was up there waiting for her,” Sheriff’s Department spokesman Ozzie Knezovich said. Police said they believe Roy Murry shot the Canfields and Constable and then set fire to their house and barn to conceal the evidence. Terry Canfield was found in the barn, which was completely destroyed, while Lisa Canfield and her son were inside the fire-damaged home.
Terry Canfield was a lieutenant in the fire department. The Spokane Fire Department said Terry Canfield was a paramedic in the city for 28 years and a lieutenant in the department. “He will be remembered as a brilliant paramedic with a very compassionate heart,” Spokane Mayor David Condon said in a statement. “He will be missed greatly by his family, friends, colleagues and others who had the good fortune to cross paths with him.”
Neighbors recalled Terry and Lisa as giving people. “Terry and Lisa were a great couple,” neighbor Merrily Lowry said. “We never saw anything that I could say negative, nothing. So we’re going to miss them a lot.”
John Constable was Lisa’s son from a previous marriage and the brother of Roy Murry’s wife.
Murry was awarded the Bronze Star for saving a VIP in Iraq. “Mr. Murry, by all accounts, that people we’ve talked with, is a hero. He served with great valor in Iraq and he was severely wounded in Iraq,” the sheriff’s department spokesman, Knezovich, told reporters at a press conference. According to the Spokesman-Review, Murry earned the Bronze Star for valor as an Army National Guard sergeant in Iraq. He was severely injured in a bomb explosion while there. His commander, Lt. Col. Thomas Heslin Jr., said Murry returned fire, despite being wounded, in a “complex ambush,” while playing a “critical role” in the escape of a “VIP” that his unit was protecting.
Murry ran for the state senate in 2011, arrested on gun charges. Murry, who became involved in the Republican party locally after returning from Iraq, was nominated in 2011 to run for an open state senate seat. He was operating a security company at the time. But days after he was nominated as one of the candidates for the seat, Murry was arrested in Las Vegas on a gun charge, the Spokesman-Review reported. Police said Murry’s car was parked on the side of a road at an odd angle. Police reported Murry had tobacco juice drooling from his mouth and they had trouble awakening him. The officers said they found a semi-automatic handgun in his waistband, covered by his coat, two knives, two ammunition clips and loose rounds in his pocket. He also had body armor in the car. Murry, who already had a previous conviction in Washington state for possession of a switchblade knife, was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and sleeping in public.
Arrested for loaded gun into VA hospital. Murry was also arrested for allegedly carrying a loaded gun into a Veterans Administration hospital in Walla Walla, the Spokesman-Review reported. Murry, who was 26 at the time, told his doctor he carried a firearm “24/7.” The hospital staff said they saw a “bulge” on Murry’s back and called police, who found a loaded 9mm handgun with a round in the chamber. He also was carrying a knife with a blade longer than 3 inches, the newspaper reported. He was indicted on charges of possession of a firearm in a federal facility and possession of a dangerous weapon in a federal facility, both misdemeanor charges.
Source: Tom Cleary, Heavy, May 31, 2015.