Officers visited home before murder-suicide
Baltimore County police were called to residence twice because of arguing
The day before
Police were called at 4 p.m. and again at about 7 p.m. Tuesday to the couple’s mobile home on Davis Avenue, where they had been arguing about their relationship, police reports say. The officers informed the couple about the process of filing protective orders but did not witness any physical abuse, the reports say.
The next day, police said, Rey, 35, shot his wife of more than 10 years, Amber Cox, 28, while the couple’s children were inside.
Rey then took the children and drove about 20 miles south, to a Red Lobster restaurant in Hanover. He left them there with patrons before driving to a remote road in Severn where he shot himself in his truck, police said.
On Tuesday, a police report says, officers returned to the home the second time because Rey knocked on a neighbor’s door, telling the neighbor he “feared for his life and there is a conspiracy against him.”
The officer spoke to Rey, who asked officers repeatedly why they had returned, the report says. Even as Rey spoke to the officers, he also was on the phone with his mother telling her, “the police had their hands on their guns and they were going to shoot him,” according to the report.
County police spokesman Shawn Vinson said officers did not attempt to draw their weapons.
Rey told officers he planned to leave but then changed his mind several times. He also called out to neighbors, telling them to look out their windows because he said police were going to hurt him, the report says. Rey kept saying he feared for his life but couldn’t say why, the report says.
Cox, meanwhile, walked up the street and stood on the corner, but told officers she had nowhere to go.
“We received a call, met with Rey and Cox, and both said they got into a verbal argument,” Vinson said.
He said there was no evidence of physical contact, or that either had been using drugs or alcohol, he said.
Online court records do not show any prior incidents between the couple, and Cox’s grandmother, Barbara Cox, told The Baltimore Sun she was unaware of any physical violence between Rey and Cox.
A neighbor, Robert Brill, told The Sun Thursday that he heard the couple “yelling and screaming at each other” on Tuesday.
Brill said Cox had told him her marriage “had issues, but she wanted to work it out.”
Vinson said Rey used a gun that he legally owned in the Wednesday shootings.
Family members of Rey did not respond to requests for comment.
Cox’s grandmother, Barbara Cox, said previously her three grandsons — 7-year-old twins and a 6-year-old — were with her family in Crownsville.
Cox said her family still was trying to comprehend what had happened to her granddaughter.
“She was marvelous,” Cox said of her granddaughter. “She was just a terrific mom. She loved those boys with her heart and soul.”