WALDORF, Md. — A Maryland woman shot and killed her husband, a Washington, D.C., homicide detective, hours after she posted a video of the couple’s wedding on social media.
Christina Lynn Francis’ father found her body, along with that of her husband, Timothy Eugene Francis, 50, when he went to their Waldorf home after being unable to reach Christina Francis, 41, by phone, Charles County Sheriff’s Office officials said. Sheriff’s deputies responded to a 911 call from the man around 6 p.m. Friday.
Evidence at the scene pointed to the murder-suicide, authorities said. The investigation is ongoing.
>> Read more true crime stories
The shooting took place about 12 hours after Christina Francis posted a video of the couple’s April 2017 wedding in Santa Monica, California, along with statements that seemed to indicate trouble in the marriage.
“This day meant everything to me,” she wrote in a Facebook post rife with misspellings, including the misspelling of her own name. “This marriage (was) put together for a great (reason).”
She wrote that the couple belonged together always.
“I love you and what we had together,” she wrote. “We had six years of experience and memories that should have taken (precedence) over everything (and) everything we did but (we) got lost in petty (expletive) you believed was a mistake.”
One of the couple’s neighbors told WUSA in D.C. that he saw Christina Francis about 90 minutes before her father found the bodies.
“She had just walked past me walking her dog,” Delancey Praylow III told the news station. “An hour and a half later, we heard the police sirens.”
Officials with Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department said Saturday that Timothy Francis had been with the department for 20 years. The D.C. police union tweeted that Francis was a second-generation police officer who followed in his father’s footsteps.
“Tim was one of the best detectives in CID,” the tweet read. “His father was also a detective that worked nearly 45 years for MPD. Tim was a stand-up guy that always held his ground. We are all still reeling from this news.
“The MPD has lost a true detective today, and he will not soon be replaced.”
“Mourning the loss of our colleague and friend is extremely difficult,” D.C. police Chief Peter Newsham told WUSA in a statement. “Detective Francis spent two decades protecting the community from violence, and to learn that he was the victim of a homicide is heartbreaking.”
Praylow and another neighbor, Demetrius Wilson, told WUSA that the neighborhood was a friendly one and that they had hung out with Tim and Christina Francis at a get-together a few weeks ago in another neighbor’s yard.
“Good folks,” Praylow said. “She just shared a piece of cake with me at the gathering, and she was real nice.”
Wilson described Tim Francis as a family man who loved life and loved his children.
“You never know what people go through,” Wilson told the station.