If I recall correctly from the various stories that I’ve read and heard; she screamed, then was shot. I haven’t heard how much time there was between the two. I would bet that Coach was responding to that scream.
While it is beyond fathoming for me or you, these folks may not have had a gun or not had one that was readily accessible (small child in the house).
It is sad to think that we should not have an expectation of sufficient security to not need a gun to go into our own back yard. I’m assuming that in what is described as a nice neighborhood their back yard was probably fenced. In such a case, I might have thought there was a problem with the dog and responded to my wife’s screams without a gun in hand.
Bless her heart but my wife is deathly afraid of frogs, even tiny ones. Her screams when one jumped into her blouse once when she went out on our back porch would have raised the dead. Thankfully, I didn’t respond with a gun. She would have taken it from me and shot me for laughing at her.
you’re right I can’t conceive of someone not owning a gun. I have them stashed all over the house, just in case someone shoots one of my relatives in the back yard(might happen too since the next door neighbor has a medical MJ card and grows his own, his yard backed up to mine)and I will have one close to hand. However, the shot must have followed closely behind the scream, maybe he didn’t own a firearm, but this sounds like a classic case of the husband having the wife shot and then having himself wounded to draw off suspicion. What was the name of that Officer(who is in jail now)that did that with his wife, McDonald or something like that.