Police Study 911 Calls After Murder-Suicide

There was confusion among officers, dispatchers and 911 callers over the location of events that ended with a murder-suicide in Frisco (Tex.) last weekend, and sent armed police storming inside the wrong residence. A couple had a disagreement at 9130 Apollo Court, and the male threatened his wife with a gun. Their 12 year-old daughter ran up their cul-de-sac road, and around the corner to a neighbor’s house at 4050 Palace Place for help, where resident Greg Brenner dialed 911. However, he gave the police dispatcher the incident location as “9130 Palace Place,” confusing his street name and the incident location’s house number. The calltaker tried to obtain a better address from the man, and then from the young girl. Meanwhile, police had been dispatched to the caller’s residence, based on the ANI/ALI information. The female resident Jody Hoover then heard police arrive, saw someone with a gun, and believed it was the gunman coming to her house. She alerted her husband, who armed himself with a handgun.

The wife then dialed 911 and told dispatchers that someone was trying to get into their house. At one point she recognized that it was the police and yelled “Police!” But the dispatcher apparently believed that meant she urgently needed the police. Officers who believed they were at the right house broke down the door to forcibly confront the homeowners.

It took 12 minutes for officers to discover the error and arrive at the correct location, where the man had already shot and killed his wife, and then killed himself. Read more about the incident here.

Listen to the 13-minute 911 call between Jody Hoover, the female resident, and the 911 dispatcher, and the radio traffic.

The two locations were less than 300 feet apart and around the corner of a main road and a cul-de-sac. The homes are nearly identical, in a large housing development. Click the numbers for more information.
View Frisco Murder-Suicide in a larger map