Tragedy struck in Santa Rosa yesterday in an incident that the Santa Rosa Police Department (SRPD) is investigating as a murder-suicide connected to a domestic violence situation. At around 7:02 PM, officers and emergency responders were dispatched to an apartment on the 4600 block of Quigg Drive. A woman, in the complex where the violence occurred, reported to authorities that Jeremy Lyle, 44, had given her an infant and instructed her to call 911 as the child's mother was injured, before he left the scene, according to social media posts by the Santa Rosa Police Department.
Upon arrival, officers discovered Mari Bonnici, 38, unresponsive on a living room couch with a fatal gunshot wound. Further in the apartment, they found twin toddlers unharmed. Lyle, an off-duty deputy sheriff, was reported to have subsequently gone to the parking lot of the Sonoma County coroner's office. As SRPD officers carefully attempted to negotiate a peaceful surrender, these efforts unfortunately did not come to fruition. After hours of communications, Lyle died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at approximately 2:00 AM.
The SRPD detectives, alongside the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office, have been tirelessly working better to understand the so-called motive behind this heartbreaking event. Authorities confirmed that Lyle and Bonnici, also employed by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office as a Detention Specialist, were previously in a domestic partnership and were off-duty at the time. No earlier reports of domestic violence between the two have surfaced as the detectives continue their ongoing investigation into the matter.
