Man Slain After He Allegedly Kills Hostage

Ending a daylong standoff, Ventura police shot and killed a man Friday who fatally stabbed his estranged girlfriend in the couple’s home.

Roland E. Sheehan, who had a long history of violence, had kept about 40 police officers at bay since dawn at a two-story house he owned with his ex-girlfriend, Vicki Shade, in the 7000 block of Wolverine Street.

Shade, 35, died Friday evening at Ventura County Medical Center.

The standoff in the normally quiet eastside neighborhood started shortly after 6 a.m. when neighbors heard screams and called police, witnesses said.

The 43-year-old Sheehan had cut the phone lines to the house and broken in through a window, forcing Shade’s roommate, the roommate’s son and two of Shade’s children--a 17-month-old daughter whose father is Sheehan and an 11-year-old girl--to flee.

A fourth child, the roommate’s 4-year-old daughter, slept through the commotion and was freed about 8 a.m.

As the SWAT team surrounded the house, Sheehan, armed with a butcher knife, barricaded himself and Shade in her second-floor master bedroom, Ventura Police Lt. Gary McCaskill said.

Shortly before 4 p.m., heavily armed officers fired tear gas and flash-bang devices into a bedroom window but saw no movement, McCaskill said. SWAT team members who had been hiding inside the house then broke down the bedroom door and fired at Sheehan several times. The sound of a woman’s screams and a man’s shouts could be heard moments after the shots.

For the last two weeks, Shade and her roommate, Yalang Hollingsworth, had been sleeping with telephones nearby, fearing trouble, Hollingsworth said. The district attorney’s office had given Shade one of the cell phones that are handed out to victims of domestic violence.