In the quiet early morning hours of November 6, 2016, the life of 21-year-old Rosemarie Reilly was tragically cut short in a residence on Lake Drive SE in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A senior nursing student at Grand Valley State University, Reilly was a native of New Baltimore and was known for her active involvement in the Kirkhof College of Nursing and as a member of the Student Nurses Association.
The events of that morning unfolded as a murder-suicide perpetrated by her ex-boyfriend,
21-year-old Jeremy Kelley. Grand Rapids police responded to reports of several gunshots just after 3 a.m. and discovered Reilly deceased at the scene. Kelley was found with a gunshot wound and was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. The investigation indicated that Kelley had gone to the residence where Reilly was, shot her, and then shot himself.
In the months leading up to the tragedy, there was a history of domestic violence. Reilly had obtained a personal protection order against Kelley and there were two outstanding warrants for his arrest on domestic violence charges. Her family reported that Kelley had stalked her, broken her nose, and threatened to kill both her and himself. They expressed the belief that the system failed to protect their daughter, questioning why Kelley had not been arrested and why his firearms had not been taken away prior to the fatal incident. The family's concerns over alleged negligence by law enforcement in the handling of Reilly's repeated reports of Kelley's threatening behavior eventually led them to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court for review. They believed that Kelley's father's position as a police officer on the east side of the state may have played a role in the lack of action taken against him.
