Estranged Husband Kills Novelist

Nancy Richards-Akers, a popular romance novelist, was shot twice in the back of the head and killed by her estranged husband late Saturday as their two young children watched, District of Columbia police said Sunday.

A short time later, on the grass facing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a man who police believe was Jeremy R. Akers put a shotgun barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger as two U.S. Park Police officers approached. He died instantly.

The shooting outside the home the couple once shared shocked residents. The couple’s two elementary-school-age children--who had been living with their father, a former Marine--were left behind when he fled after shooting their mother inside her red Jeep, a police officer said.

Sunday, as friends gathered to console one another, one neighbor said that “none of the people in the family want to talk. They’re absolutely shredded. We’re absolutely shredded.”

Richards-Akers, 45, wrote 16 historical romance novels, including such titles as “Devil’s Wager” and “Miss Wickham’s Betrothal.” Her latest offering was “So Wild a Kiss,” and she painted lively portraits of herself in Internet interviews and on the World Wide Web sites she managed.

After the marriage soured, police said, Jeremy Akers, 58, stayed in the home with the children while his wife moved into a nearby apartment. The couple, who also had an adult child, split child-rearing duties.

One neighbor, who said she traded polite greetings with Jeremy Akers minutes before the shooting, described him as an intense man who often volunteered his sharply conservative political views.

“He was very vocal about it,” said the neighbor, who asked not to be identified. “He liked to have intense conversations with people. He was the kind of guy who got in your personal space, and you had to step back.”

Witnesses reported gunshots shortly before 10:30 p.m. Saturday. Police and paramedics found Richards-Akers slumped inside her Jeep. A paramedic described two wounds in the back of her head from a small-caliber handgun. Attempts to revive her failed.

A neighbor took the two children from the house, police said.

About 90 minutes after officers broadcast a lookout call, one of Jeremy Akers’ friends called police to say Akers had called him. Police traced the call to a pay telephone near the Lincoln Memorial.

At 12:50 a.m., as Park Police officers neared the Vietnam memorial, they saw a man seated on the grass about 50 feet from the etched wall, authorities said. When he saw them, district police said, he shot himself.

Akers’ vehicle was found nearby. Police have not formally identified the body but said Akers’ relatives will identify the remains today.

Richards-Akers, whose 1997 book “Wild Irish Skies” was named one of the top 10 romance novels of that year by the Washington Post, spoke of the world she created in her fiction.

“I do love historical romance, and especially as a genre for Irish historicals, because history can be depressing and dreary, dark, cold, dank, unliberated and hopeless,” she said. “But romance allows me to find the happy ending, to modify reality just enough to give it hope.”