BETHEL — A woman killed in a murder-suicide had a court order protecting her from a man officials say killed her inside a house on Reservoir Street Tuesday night.
Traci-Marie Jones, 52, was a murder victim and Lester Jones, 58, died of suicide, the state’s chief medical examiner’s office said Wednesday. Both died from gunshot wounds, according to the coroner’s office.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, Bethel police had not released their identities.
Records show the two were married in 1999 and link public records with their Reservoir Street home, where police said the shooting occurred around 10:50 pm on Tuesday.
Records show Traci-Marie Jones obtained a court order against Lester Jones on January 24, a week before the fatal shooting. Her orders prohibited him from making contact with her, required him to stay at least 100 yards from her, and surrender all her firearms and ammunition to her.
The filing states that Lester Jones was allegedly in possession of “one or more firearms.”
Court records show Lester Jones was released on promise to appear after being arrested on January 24 on a warrant stemming from the October 2021 theft of a timber yard in Danbury.
Surveillance footage showed a man, later identified as Jones, driving a 2019 Kia Sportage and removing items from a lumber yard, according to an affidavit in the arrest warrant.
Jones admitted to police questioning that he had stolen several air intakes from the property, had done business with the company in the past, and that the owner did not properly refund him when he returned them. The warrant states that it did.
The coroner’s office announced Wednesday that Lester Jones died from a gunshot wound to the head. Traci-Marie Jones died from gunshot wounds to her head and “trunk,” the coroner’s office said.
Bethel Police Capt. Heather Barnes said officers responded to a home on Reservoir Street after receiving a call late Tuesday that someone was “screaming” in the street.
When officers arrived, they found the man and woman in the home “suffering from obvious gunshot wounds,” Barnes said.
Police began medical treatment for both individuals, but the woman was pronounced dead at the scene, Burns said.
Multiple vehicles, including a van and several police cars, were parked around the property, which was taped off Wednesday morning. A gray Chevrolet sedan with Connecticut plates was towed from a residential driveway just before noon.
Celso Ferreira, a resident of Reservoir Street, said he didn’t know what had happened next door until Wednesday morning.
“I was asleep and didn’t hear or see anything,” he said.
Ferreira said the residents of the house were friendly but unfriendly.
“They are my neighbors, but I don’t know who was at home,” he said. “They would say hello and all that, but nothing more.”
State Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan, D-Bethel, thanked first responders and offered his condolences to family, friends and neighbors.
“I am once again proudly leading an effort in our legislature to advocate for victims of domestic and intimate partner violence. It is our duty to stop these preventable tragedies.” he said in a statement Wednesday night.
Suicides by homicide are rare, but several have occurred in the Danbury area in recent years, including two in 2022, experts say.
The couple’s bodies were found at their Clayton Road home in Danbury in November. Four months later, her mother and three children committed suicide at her home in Whalley Street, Danbury.
An elderly couple died in a murder-suicide at the Sterling Woods condominium complex in Danbury in October 2020, and a New Fairfield couple died in a murder-suicide in 2019.
There was also an apparent murder-suicide attempt at Bethel in 2016 that killed one man and injured two others.
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