In the late hours of a Friday night or the early moments of a Saturday morning in Madison, Wisconsin, the life of 34-year-old Sherry S. Waller, a Black/African American female, was tragically cut short. Inside her own home, as two of her children slept, she was killed by a single gunshot to the head as she lay in her bed. The man responsible for her death was 39-year-old James Sykes, with whom she had been in a relationship since at least the previous Christmas.
Following the murder of
Waller, Sykes turned the gun on himself, ending his own life in a horrific murder-suicide. The authorities later revealed that Sykes had a history of domestic abuse. In 2016, he was convicted of a felony for domestic abuse, which legally prohibited him from owning a firearm. It remains unclear how he was able to obtain the weapon used to kill Sherry Waller and himself.
The investigation by the Madison Police Department concluded that Sykes was the sole perpetrator of the murder-suicide. His prior conviction for domestic abuse highlighted a pattern of violence that culminated in the tragic death of Sherry Waller. The incident left a family shattered and a community mourning the loss of a mother, taken in a senseless act of violence.
