Wanda F. Howard, a 61-year-old White woman, was found dead inside a home on Truex Road in Leesville, South Carolina, after her daughter, Juanita Gunter, grew worried when she could not reach her and asked deputies to check on the house. When there was still no answer at the door, law enforcement entered and discovered Howard and her long-time partner, Michael Dewayne Blume, both dead.
Investigators described the relationship as a long one, stretching back more than two decades, and said Howard had recently left the home to stay with her daughter. Family members told reporters that Blume asked her to come back to talk, and that, in the days before she died, Howard had expressed a fear that something bad was about to happen. The unease turned into alarm when her phone went unanswered, and the welfare check on that Friday evening became the moment the family’s worry was confirmed in the harshest possible way.
Authorities said the deaths were the result of criminal domestic violence and ruled the incident a murder-suicide. Autopsy findings reported by local news indicated Blume shot Howard in the head before shooting himself; one report specified that Howard was shot twice, while Blume died from a single gunshot wound to the head. Because the suspected shooter was also dead at the scene, there were no arrests, no charges filed, and no court proceedings to follow—only an investigation that ended with a determination of what happened inside that home.
The violence did not endanger everyone under that roof that night. Reports said Blume’s mother, who was described as having Alzheimer’s and living in the home, was present during the incident but was not injured; she was taken into emergency protective custody at the scene until relatives could be contacted. In the aftermath, family members told reporters there had been a history of domestic violence between the couple, details that cast the final encounter on Truex Road as the last chapter of a pattern that those close to Howard said they had feared could turn deadly.
