On a Tuesday night in Watertown, Connecticut, the life of 15-year-old Caucasian female Della Jette was tragically cut short in an act of sudden violence. On December 3, 2019, an argument over cigarette smoke escalated into a horrific domestic dispute that would claim three lives and leave a mother grieving the loss of her two children. The evening began after Della returned home from a field trip and took issue with her mother's live-in boyfriend, 42-year-old Paul Ferguson, smoking inside their Litchfield Road house.
The disagreement intensified when Ferguson, who had been in a relationship with Della's mother, Danielle Jette, for two years and had only moved in two weeks prior, became confrontational. As the argument escalated, Della's 16-year-old brother, Sterling Jette Jr., stepped in to intervene. In response, Ferguson retrieved a Glock handgun from the master bedroom, a weapon he was not legally allowed to possess due to a prior felony conviction for unlawful restraint. He first shot Sterling in the leg. As Danielle ran downstairs to call 911, she heard a second gunshot; Ferguson had shot Della in the chest on the back deck of the home. He then returned inside and shot Sterling again, this time in the chest.
When police arrived at the home around 9:45 p.m., they found a devastating scene. Della was discovered on the back deck, and Sterling was found on the floor between the kitchen and living room. Both teenagers were rushed to Waterbury Hospital, but their gunshot wounds to the chest proved fatal, and they were pronounced dead shortly after arrival. Officers found Paul Ferguson in the master bedroom, where he had turned the gun on himself, succumbing to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The investigation that followed confirmed the incident as a double murder-suicide. The sole suspect was Paul Ferguson, who ended his own life after killing the two teenagers. No arrests were made as the perpetrator was deceased. The Watertown community was left in shock and mourning, holding vigils to remember Della, a basketball player at Kaynor Technical High School, and her brother Sterling. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that the family had previously endured the loss of the children's father to a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the same home in 2016.
