On a cold Sunday afternoon, December 18, 2016, the quiet of a west Tulsa neighborhood near West 8th Street and Charles Page Boulevard was shattered when 72-year-old Ronald Massengale, a Caucasian / White man, stepped out of his home armed with a gun as police arrived in response to a disturbance at his address. Witnesses later described seeing officers take cover in the street while Massengale confronted them, rifle or shotgun in hand, the standoff unfolding in view of nearby homes that lined
the block.
Officers had been called to the house after alarming behavior was reported, and as they approached, Massengale emerged from the residence and pointed his weapon in their direction. One of the responding officers, 41-year-old Officer Steve Dickson, fired on Massengale after he fired his shotgun at police, striking him in the street near his home and ending the confrontation almost as soon as it began. Investigators later emphasized that video footage and witness statements showed officers waiting as long as they believed they safely could before shooting, saying the scene left them with “no choice” once Massengale advanced toward them with the gun raised.
When officers moved past his body and entered the house, the full scope of what had happened inside became clear. In the dim, quiet interior they found Massengale’s wife, 67-year-old Jacquelyn, dead from gunshot wounds, along with three family dogs that had also been shot. Investigators discovered that the home’s natural gas had been turned on, a chilling detail that suggested an intent to cause further destruction, whether through an explosion or to mask what had happened there. Police concluded that before stepping outside with his gun, Massengale had killed his wife and the animals, then manipulated the gas line, setting the stage for the deadly encounter that followed.
According to homicide detectives, Massengale then left the house and deliberately fired his shotgun outside, apparently to draw law enforcement to the scene. When officers arrived, he walked toward them with the shotgun pointed in their direction, ignoring commands and closing the distance in a way investigators interpreted as intentional and fatalistic. One detective later remarked that people could “draw conclusion” about his state of mind, suggesting that Massengale may have been seeking an end he could not bring on himself, forcing a deadly confrontation with police instead.
Neighbors painted a picture of a couple who largely kept to themselves. Jacquelyn was remembered as someone who rarely came outside and seemed sheltered, while Massengale was more visible in the neighborhood, though his presence made some uneasy. People who lived nearby described him as erratic, prone to seizures followed by stretches of anger, and given to animated, unsettled conversations in which he waved his arms and talked in a way that left others on edge. Some recalled his paranoia about crime and burglary, and his tendency to argue over something as simple as where people parked their vehicles on the street. In the wake of the shooting, those same neighbors struggled to reconcile the man they had cautiously avoided with the horrifying reality of a murdered wife, dead pets, and a house rigged with gas.
The deaths of Ronald and Jacquelyn were classified as part of Tulsa’s grim homicide tally for 2016, counted as the city’s 77th and 78th killings that year and contributing to what would become a record-setting total. Police labeled the case a domestic homicide, identifying Massengale as the sole suspect in his wife’s murder. Because he died at the scene from police gunfire, no arrests were made and no additional suspects were named, and the case has been treated as resolved and substantiated rather than an open investigation. What remained was a shaken neighborhood, a family torn apart, and a stark entry in Tulsa’s homicide record marking a day when violence inside a modest home spiraled outward into the street and ended with two lives lost.
