Man Kills His Ex, Her Mother, Then Himself

A man who killed his ex-girlfriend in Santa Monica and stabbed her mother to death in Westchester committed suicide Wednesday when police cornered him in a small Nebraska town, authorities said.

Sitting in his ex-girlfriend’s car and facing a blockade of Nebraska police and SWAT members, William Wheeler Jr., 41, shot himself in the head, said LAPD Capt. Ken Hillman.

Los Angeles police had put out a nationwide alert for Wheeler after finding the bodies of Anna Catherine Hughes, 66, and her 37-year-old daughter in their homes Tuesday.

“It’s a really sad story, but we realized the possibility that this guy was out there on the loose, and thank God this guy is off the streets,” Hillman said.

A concerned neighbor found Hughes’ body in the kitchen, Hillman said. Police said they found spent bullet shells in the home, but a spokesman for the coroner’s office said she died from multiple stab wounds.

Neighbors told police they had seen Wheeler leaving her home in the 8000 block of Regis Way on Monday. Hughes’ son told them that his mother had urged his sister to break up with Wheeler, who had become increasingly violent.

After finding Hughes’ body, officers tried to notify her daughter in Santa Monica, calling pagers and a variety of phone numbers to no avail, Hillman said. The LAPD then contacted Santa Monica police, who used a battering ram to enter the daughter’s home in the 2300 block of Ocean Park Boulevard about 6:15 p.m., said Santa Monica Lt. Frank Fabrega.

The daughter, whose name has not been released, was wrapped and bound inside a closet, Hillman said. Neighbors said they last saw her Friday.

Santa Monica detectives learned that Wheeler had family in Kimball, Neb., a town of about 2,500, Fabrega said. They notified Nebraska state troopers, and Kimball police began approaching the home of Wheeler’s father, a truck driver, about 12:30 p.m. Wheeler drove from the home as officers approached and had gone about eight blocks when he killed himself.

In the last few months, neighbors in Santa Monica said, Wheeler had been acting increasingly strange. One day last summer, after years of conservative dress, he came home with a mohawk. He gained weight. He hadn’t been working, they said. He was verbally abusive to his girlfriend.

Outside her apartment Wednesday evening, neighbors and friends erected a memorial of candles. She “was warm, cheerful, friendly, positive and hard-working,” said Marinella Baldwin, 57, a neighbor.

In Westchester, neighbors of Hughes described her as a humorous, vivacious Irishwoman who traveled to her homeland and often went to Irish cultural events.

“You would see her push her lawn mower around like she was 25,” said Elizabeth Hoyt, 85.

“She had a very good sense of humor,” said another neighbor, who declined to be named. “Anything could be laughed at to her.”

Baldwin said Hughes and her daughter had traveled together to Ireland about a year ago. The daughter “came back and it was like she had a new sense of herself,” Baldwin said. “She was happy.”