Officials in Spokane, Washington, have identified a former Lincoln University police officer as the man who shot and killed his wife Tuesday before turning the gun on himself.
Authorities in Washington identified the shooter as Christopher P. Henderson, 37. His wife, 30-year-old Sheena Henderson, had been a medical student in Jefferson City.
The 2005-06 and 2007-08 editions of the Missouri State Manual, commonly known as the "Blue Book," list a Christopher Henderson as a Lincoln University "Public Safety Officer I."
No home address or age or any other identifying information was provided by the Blue Book; however, Lincoln Police Chief Bill Abbott said he met a man who said he was Christopher Henderson a few years ago.
"He said he had worked as a police officer for Lincoln," Abbott said. "He was not on the force when I took over."
Jefferson City police confirmed that a Christopher Henderson with a birth date in 1977 had lived in the Capital City until a few years ago and he had no criminal history with their department.
According to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, Missouri Department of Public Safety records indicate Henderson still had a valid license as a police officer when he died this week.
In addition to working at LU, the Spokane paper said he served with the U.S. Navy in Iraq before moving to Spokane three years ago.
The newspaper also reported Henderson had been evaluated by Spokane area law enforcement as a potential suicide risk less than 24 hours before the murder/suicide.
Henderson was cleared after officers concluded he was not a threat to himself or others.
He had told a co-worker that life wasn't worth living because his wife was going to leave him for another woman.
Three hours after he was cleared, Christopher retrieved a gun from Spokane police who had confiscated it from him in May during an earlier suicide attempt.
He eventually walked into the hospital where Sheena Henderson worked and shot her multiple times, killing her, and then turned the gun on himself. Authorities said Christopher died of a single gun shot wound to the head.
Sheena was a 2009 graduate of the medical specialist program at Metro Business College in Jefferson City, according to a memorial post on the school's Facebook page.
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