The Army staff sergeant who killed his wife and a female police officer on her first shift and injured two others will be charged with multiple counts of murder as new details reveal a history of domestic abuse.
Ronald Hamilton, 32, of Woodbridge, Va., opened fired on officers responding to a domestic disturbance Saturday, fatally striking Ashley Guindon. Guidon was on her first patrol as a new officer of the Prince William County Police Department. Hamilton murdered his wife Crystal Hamilton before officers arrived on scene. Court documents reveal Hamilton admitted the murders to authorities Monday, according to Marine Corps Times.
“The accused made statements to law enforcement officers stating that he shot his wife and the police officers,” reads the affidavit.
Hamilton, stationed at the Pentagon, is charged with capital murder for killing Guindon and will face a murder charge for shooting his wife. Crystal told her 11-year-old son to run just before Hamilton killed her, according to the victim’s sister Wendy Howard. Crystal succumbed to gun shots to her torso and head. Their son is unharmed and reportedly did not witness the shootings.
“He’s trying to come through,” Howard told The Associated Press. “He’s a strong kid.”
Howard says she was aware of friction in their marriage and that Hamilton banned Crystal’s mother from his house last year.
“I told her I think it would be best if you did not go back there, because at that time we weren’t sure of his state of mind,” Howard told the AP. “There was never anything that she personally revealed to me that would have made me concerned.”
Crystal’s closet friends reveal a troubling history of cheating and abuse, however, alleging Hamilton conducted multiple affairs, tracked her location, tightly controlled her social media accounts and regularly cut off her credit and debit cards, reports WUSA9.
In one instance her friend describes a scene in which Hamilton loudly burst into a restaurant where Crystal was dining with friends, grabbed her and left and prompted the manager to call the police. Shayna Colunga, a close friend of Crystal’s, describes another incident involving abuse at a property in Hawaii.
“He kept going towards her until she fell down their stairs at their home in Hawaii,” Colunga told WUSA9.
Colunga describes an intensely jealous person who once outfitted Crystal’s car with a tracking device. He also reportedly did not like when she went out without him. Crystal was planning on dinner and a movie with friends on the night of her murder, according to WUSA9.
“Crystal was an amazing person,” Colunga told WUSA9. “She lit up a room when she walked in.”
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