Marissa Leara Rowell, 32, a white female from Hilliard, Florida, died on July 24, 2025, in a triple homicide that authorities say unfolded inside a home on West 12th Avenue. Investigators identified the three victims as Marissa Leara Rowell, her mother Sandra Gayle Fogarty, 71, and her sister Alisha Lael Fogarty, 33. The Nassau County Sheriff's Office said the violence was domestic in nature and began in the evening hours, shattering what relatives described as a family preparing to start a new chapter.
A single surviving witness, Marissa Leara Rowell's 5-year-old daughter, made it out of the house and ran to a neighbor for help, her clothes marked by blood spatter from the carnage she had just seen. Deputies followed the child's account to the residence, where they found one woman in the living room, another in a bathroom, and a third in a bedroom. The sheriff later emphasized the child's safety but warned of the long emotional road ahead.
Detectives named 34-year-old Christopher Bobby Rowell as the lone suspect. He was found with a faint pulse near an SKS-style rifle, airlifted from the scene, and later died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to officials and subsequent reporting. In the days that followed, the sheriff and family members described how the killings tore through three generations at once, leaving the child at the center of the tragedy.
No arrests were made. Authorities determined the case to be a murder-suicide carried out by Christopher Bobby Rowell, who killed Marissa Leara Rowell, 32, her mother, and her sister before turning the gun on himself. Community fundraisers were launched to help with cremation costs and to support the care of Marissa Leara Rowell's young daughter in the aftermath.
The names and ages of the victims were later memorialized in public records of gun-violence victims and in local coverage that chronicled their lives, while neighbors and relatives recounted the ordinary quiet of the street before the gunfire. For Marissa Leara Rowell, 32, a female whose plans had reportedly included moving forward with her child, the timeline ended in a house now remembered for a door opened by a frightened 5-year-old seeking help.
