Heath, OH: Could murder-suicide have been prevented?

August 9, 2009

BY RUSS ZIMMER
CentralOhio.com

HEATH -- On New Year's Eve 2008, a Licking County Sheriff's Office deputy collected 24 guns and other weapons from Robert Channel, whose wife, Vicki Channel, had been granted a temporary civil protection order earlier that day.

On Jan. 8, Vicki asked to have the order dismissed. Her request was granted, and the knives, pellet guns and firearms, including a stainless steel .45-caliber Kimber handgun, were released to her husband.

On Tuesday, Robert, 50, shot Vicki, 47, with that Kimber pistol as she tried to flee the West Main Street CVS Pharmacy in her car. He then returned to his vehicle and shot and killed himself.

A review of court records and police reports raises the question of whether more could have been done, including by the victim herself, to avoid the tragic outcome of Tuesday's events.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES?

In addition to quashing the civil protection order, Vicki also withdrew her cooperation with prosecutors in a 2006 incident in which her husband allegedly threatened her with a knife.

But since May, when Vicki left Robert after 10 years of marriage, she called Heath police five times to report problems with him, including two instances in June in which she reported a violation of a restraining order attached to her pending divorce case.

One report was forwarded to John Diernbach, who was hired by the Heath Law Director's Office to review criminal cases, and he sent it back because as a restraining order and not a protection order it is a civil matter and not something police can get involved in, according to Heath Police Chief Tony Shepherd and Lt. John Mason.

Shepherd said Friday he thinks his department did everything it could to protect Vicki.

Mason said there is no policy in place instructing officers to tell complainants in these situations to call the court that issued the order or to contact their attorney, although he added most officers would advise consulting with a lawyer.

He theorized that Vicki called June 12 and then again June 14 to report restraining order violations because she wanted to have a record of the transgressions, not because she believed police would act against her estranged husband.

That restraining order -- which had a condition restricting Robert from possessing firearms -- was strengthened July 22 when the court denied Vicki's separate protection order request but placed additional "appropriate" terms on the order from the divorce, said Magistrate Ann Snyder of the Domestic Relations Division of Licking County Common Pleas Court.

"(It) made his noncompliance subject to not just civil but criminal proceedings," she said.

A week later, Robert was outside Vicki's trailer in the Amber Mobile Home Park to pick up his 9-year-old daughter, who was going to bed, for visitation at 10 p.m. He called police when Vicki said it was too late.

A Heath police officer arrived and advised Robert of potential criminal trespassing charge -- he already had one violation pending at the time of his death -- but no report was taken.

GUN COLLECTOR

Robert had no fewer than 15 handguns in his possession as well as a couple of dozen pocketknives and even a sword, according to the property seized list from the service of the 2008 protection order. In all, 51 items were taken from his Ethel Avenue home.

During an arrest for domestic violence in 2006, Robert told a Heath police officer what his arsenal made him capable of.

"Robert told me that if he really wanted to hurt his wife we would have responded to his house and would have been cleaning up a crime scene," the police report reads.

During pretrial discussion with the prosecutor, Vicki recanted her story and said she didn't believe Robert had any intention of hurting her. The case was dropped.

Heath police call sheets show Robert was known to carry firearms. He had a concealed carry license, or CCL, until late last month, Sheriff Randy Thorp said.

The CCL expired July 18 and his application for renewal was rejected when Dep. Ken Richardson, who handles the office's concealed carry program, discovered he was the respondent on the July protection order that was denied.

Snyder and Thorp both said weapon collections when orders are served are on a kind of honor system. The deputy is not allowed to search the home just on the basis of the order, and sometimes respondents might not be honest about their gun ownership, Snyder said.