Man Killed Girlfriend, Her Mother Outside Courthouse As They Sought Protective Order

A Kentucky woman who was seeking a protective order against her boyfriend was fatally shot alongside her mother on Monday morning outside the courthouse in Elizabethtown before her hearing.

Erica Riley, 37, and her mother, Janet Riley, 71, were identified by multiple news outlets as the women who were killed by Christopher Elder, 46, outside the Hardin County Justice Center.

A third family member was wounded, Elizabethtown Police Chief Jeremy Thompson told reporters on Monday. Police did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request Tuesday for an update on their condition.

After a pursuit and standoff with police, Elder fatally shot himself.

Court records cited by WAVE-TV in Louisville said that Erica Riley and Elder were scheduled for a court hearing that morning on a request for an emergency protective order. Riley said that Elder had been abusive toward her and her two children for a year and a half.

The document, obtained by WAVE-TV, described an incident in which Riley said Elder was drunk and screaming at her daughter and that when she tried to intervene, he hit her twice in the jaw.

Thompson told reporters that two children who were part of the protective order case were also there when Riley and her mother were shot. The children were unharmed.

Elizabethtown police spokesperson Chris Denham told WDRB-TV in Louisville that Janet Riley was taken to the hospital after the shooting, where she died of her injuries.

Thompson told reporters that Elder drove off before authorities arrived.

Several law enforcement agencies, including the Kentucky State Police, chased Elder. The Hopkinsville Police Department said he “actively pointed a rifle at pursuing officers multiple times.” He then drove into a church parking lot, where a standoff began.

During the standoff, Elder pointed his rifle at himself and at officers, police officers reported. After about 90 minutes of negotiations, Elder shot himself in the head, authorities said.

Elder was airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, where he was later pronounced dead, Denham told the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear responded to the incident on X, calling the shooting a “senseless act of violence.”

Data cited by the Domestic Violence Hotline reveals that nearly 1 in 4 women in the U.S. will be the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime and that the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases a woman’s risk of homicide by 500%.

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-866-331-9474 or text “loveis” to 22522 for the National Dating Abuse Helpline .