Heather Hockenbary, a 42-year-old White woman, was killed in Spearfish, South Dakota, on August 17, 2018, when she was shot by her husband, Scott Hockenbary. Authorities later described what happened as a murder-suicide: a violent rupture inside a marriage that ended with Heather dead first, and Scott's death following days later.
In the immediate aftermath, investigators worked the case across jurisdictions, treating it as a serious homicide scene even as the focus narrowed to the
couple's private life. Spearfish police and the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office led the investigation, and other agencies assisted, including the Meade County Sheriff's Office, the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, and the South Dakota Highway Patrol.
Five days after Heather's killing, Scott Hockenbary died by suicide, closing the only obvious path to a courtroom and leaving the legal system with no living defendant to charge. With the suspected shooter dead, there were no arrests connected to Heather's death, and no trial could follow; instead, the case concluded in official terms as a murder-suicide determination rather than a prosecution.
A gun-violence incident record describing the event lists Heather as the victim and Scott as the subject-suspect, identifying their relationship as significant others and noting a murder/suicide pattern, with the suspect's death occurring at the same location on August 22, 2018. The record also indicates that a firearm was involved in the incident, reinforcing the timeline that investigators later summarized publicly: Heather was shot and killed on August 17, and Scott's death came days afterward.
