Tom Fitzpatrick, a 49-year-old White/Caucasian male, was killed on November 12, 2013, during a triple murder-suicide at a home in north Phoenix, Arizona. Police and news reports describe him as the brother-in-law of the gunman and the brother of Carol Sanders, who lived at the residence where the shootings occurred. The violence unfolded at a house near 51st Street and Thunderbird Road, where Carol had been staying with her teenage daughter following marital problems and separation from her
husband.
According to investigators, Carol had previously moved out of the home and obtained a protective order against her estranged husband, Michael Sanders. On the day of the killings, she and her daughter returned to the house under an arrangement that Michael would leave while they gathered belongings. Instead, police say Sanders came back, parked his car a short distance away, and then walked to the property on foot. At some point during this return, Fitzpatrick was in a vehicle parked in the driveway, apparently there to support his sister during the tense process of retrieving her things from the marital home.
Investigators reported that Sanders first confronted Fitzpatrick outside and shot him as he sat in the truck in the driveway, making him the first victim of the attack. Sanders then entered the garage area of the home, where Carol and her 14-year-old daughter Audrey were present, and shot them as well. Neighbors later told police they heard multiple gunshots and saw a man running from the garage. According to police statements summarized in news coverage, Sanders then dragged Carol’s body into the backyard and set it on fire, causing such extensive burning that officials initially could not determine from the remains whether she had also been shot.
After the shootings, Sanders left the immediate scene and walked along a path behind the house. Authorities say that there, he turned the gun on himself and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Because the suspected shooter died at the scene, there were no arrests in connection with Fitzpatrick’s killing. Police identified Sanders as the sole suspect in the case and treated the incident as a domestic-violence-driven triple homicide followed by suicide, with Fitzpatrick targeted primarily because of his close family relationship to Carol and his presence at the home during the court-related separation and property retrieval.
