Marriage trouble behind shootings

Pierce County sheriff’s deputy Allen Myron believed his in-laws had turned his wife against him.

So he killed them, then himself.

Those circumstances, outlined in a statement released Thursday by Tacoma police, shed new light on the lethal hours of May 14.

Myron, 49, fatally shot his in-laws, Monty Multanen, 70, and Susan Multanen, 68, at his home near Gig Harbor. After a three-hour standoff with police, he shot himself.

The police statement revealed another new detail: The day before the shootings, Myron’s wife, Sara, called the sheriff’s department to complain about her husband’s behavior.

The couple had been at an area hospital May 13, dealing with a family emergency involving their daughter. Allen Myron had been agitated.

“Sara Myron contacted Allen Myron’s immediate supervisor to express concern about his behavior at the hospital earlier in the evening,” the statement says. “On Friday afternoon, his lieutenant called Sara Myron to follow up on her call the previous evening.”

Sara Myron spoke to a domestic violence detective at 5:30 p.m. May 14 – about an hour before the shootings. She was not home at the time.

She told the detective that her husband had never assaulted her, and never made threats to harm her or anyone else. She did not believe he was dangerous. She agreed to a follow-up meeting on Monday, May 17.

She did not reveal that her husband had attempted suicide in December 2009, and threatened it on other occasions. She never reported those earlier incidents to her husband’s employer, police said.

Myron, an 11-veteran of the department, had suffered a back injury during a 2008 scuffle with a suspect and been assigned to light duty. He returned to active duty three months before the shootings, according to the sheriff’s department.

His record included no prior history of domestic violence. He received multiple commendations during his law enforcement career.

A little more than an hour after Sara Myron’s conversation with the domestic violence detective, her husband shot Monty Multanen twice in the driveway of their home. The police statement, citing interviews with Sara Myron, her daughter and law enforcement personnel, gives the following account of the incident:

The shots woke the Myrons’ youngest daughter, who was napping in an upstairs bedroom in an add-on apartment over the garage. The 15-year-old walked to the doorway of the bedroom, and looked out. She saw her father shoot her grandmother, Susan Multanen, in the chest.

“While Susan Multanen was down, Allen Myron made several statements to her, accusing her and her husband of interfering in his relationship with his wife,” police said.

Still holding the gun, Myron told his daughter to come with him. She obeyed. She saw her grandfather’s body in the driveway. She heard her father talking.

“Allen Myron then began telling his daughter that the incident was her mother’s fault for not returning his phone and text calls, for refusing to speak with him at the hospital Thursday night, and her grandparents’ fault for involving themselves in his relationship with her mother,” police said.

He told his daughter to go in the house, and followed her inside. They walked upstairs to the master bedroom. He tried to telephone his wife, who didn’t respond.

He told his daughter he was going to kill himself. He told her to go to the basement and lock herself in. She went.

Susan Multanen had crawled from the add-on apartment through the nearby woods nearby to a neighbor’s yard, where she collapsed. The neighbor saw her and called 911.

Before aid came, a friend of the daughter’s who had been staying at the Myron house arrived. He saw no evidence of the shootings. He went to the basement and saw the daughter. She told him her father was threatening suicide. She didn’t tell him about the shootings at first.

The young pair went upstairs and the friend spoke to Allen Myron, who was holding a shotgun. He ordered the teens back to the basement. They went.

A sheriff’s deputy – the first of many – reached the scene. He talked to Allen Myron by phone. More deputies came. They persuaded Myron to let his daughter and the family friend leave the house.

Negotiations began, first with deputies, then Tacoma police, who gradually took charge of the scene.

The standoff lasted two and a half hours. Myron vented.

“During the course of the negotiations Allen Myron talked about a variety of topics and complained about his unhappiness with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, but his main focus was how his marriage was deteriorating and how his in-laws had negatively influenced his wife against him,” police stated.

At 9:44 p.m., police and deputies surrounding the house heard a muffled gunshot. A police SWAT team entered the home. They found Myron’s body in a bedroom. They found four weapons on or near him: a shotgun, a rifle and two handguns.

Myron had hidden Monty Multanen’s body in the garage and hosed down the driveway where Multanen had fallen. Police believe he was trying to conceal the crime.

Whether Myron used his department-issued gun to kill his in-laws is still unclear. Police are waiting for results of ballistic tests and other forensic analysis. They also are examining computers and mobile devices recovered from the Myron home.

Additional evidence will come from 911 tapes and transcripts of law enforcement radio traffic. Both are held by the Law Enforcement Support Agency, the regional dispatch center for Tacoma police, the sheriff’s department and other local law enforcement agencies.

After seeing the police statement, Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said Sara Myron’s call and the subsequent follow-up with the domestic-violence unit appeared to reflect standard procedure within the sheriff’s department.

“If a wife or a spouse calls, we automatically follow up with the DV unit,” he said. “So that did happen, like it should. And she says he’s never touched me, hurt me, threatened me, I feel safe. And we still set up to have a face-to-face meeting with her on Monday. We made the calls, we made the appointments, we gave her opportunities.”

Knowledge of Allen Myron’s December suicide attempt would have raised an alarm with the county, Troyer said – but Sara Myron never disclosed it.

“Absolutely. Absolutely that would have made a difference,” Troyer said. “But that doesn’t mean it would have changed the outcome of what happened.

“The county has tons and tons of resources, stuff that’s confidential for families – our department or any department,” he added. “But we can’t make people take advantage of them if we don’t know.”

Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486 sean.robinson@thenewstribune.com

More online

Read the Tacoma Police Department’s investigative summary on the shooting on our website – www.thenewstribune.com.