On May 28, 2018, Jaclyn Dawn Zabel, a 29-year-old White Caucasian woman, was found with a gunshot wound to her head at a home on Wagner Road, west of Caldwell, Idaho. She was transported to a Boise hospital where she died from her injuries the following morning, on May 29, 2018. The man who shot her, 37-year-old Ian Stone, was also found at the scene with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
He died from his injuries later that same day.
The Canyon County Sheriff's Office investigated the case as a murder-suicide, stemming from a domestic violence situation. Authorities confirmed that Stone shot Zabel before turning the gun on himself and that they were not looking for any other suspects. The Ada County Coroner officially ruled Zabel's death a homicide.
The relationship between Jaclyn Zabel and Ian Stone was described as tumultuous. Court records and police reports revealed a history of domestic abuse. In 2014, Stone was charged with domestic battery against Zabel in an incident where she had to hide from him at her workplace. This charge was later pleaded down to disturbing the peace. Stone also had a prior conviction for misdemeanor domestic battery against a former wife in 2007.
Family members stated that Zabel had been in a long-term, abusive relationship with Stone, who was the father of two of her four children. Her mother, Dawn Jantzen, spoke out about the cycle of domestic violence, admitting her own past experiences may have influenced her daughter's situation. According to Jantzen, Stone had isolated Jaclyn and had even destroyed her cochlear implant, leaving her deaf. Just before the shooting, Zabel had reportedly begun talking to her siblings about leaving Stone. On the day of the incident, Stone's actions were described as strangely deliberate by Jantzen, who said he purchased a single red rose and a coffee before going to the house where he killed Jaclyn.
