In an eerie phone call to his estranged wife, the father of a 14-year-old honour roll student in upstate New York is accused of shooting her dead before turning the pistol on himself.
According to the Post-Standard of Syracuse, Ava Wood, a ninth-grader at Durgee Junior High School in Baldwinsville, was found in her bed on Friday with a gunshot wound to the head after her mother, Heather Wood, reported that she did not arrive at school.
According to the publication, her father, Christopher Wood, 51, was discovered dead from what seemed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound in another bedroom at the 6 Triangle Place residence, where police also located a shotgun.
According to CNY Central, which cited an Onondaga County 911 dispatcher who relayed what the estranged wife reported, Christopher called Heather on Thursday night and said, “This is how it ends for us.”
Additionally, Heather is said to have disclosed to the dispatcher Christopher’s recent depression.
Baldwinsville Police Chief Michael Lefancheck said of the county Sheriff Toby Shelley, “It’s difficult, to say the least. It’s not an easy scene for either of us to witness. Both the sheriff and I have been in law enforcement for a long time, and to have to walk through a scene like that is not an easy thing to do.”
Christopher also sent Heather a string of nasty text messages two days prior. According to the Post-Standard, he was involved in a stalking incident against her in March 2022.
Lefancheck stated that although the pair did not live together, they were still legally married. He said, “Ava had mostly lived with her dad.”
“It is with great sadness and a very heavy heart that I inform you of the tragic loss of Durgee Jr. High School 9th grade student Ava Wood,” the Baldwinsville school district said in an email to parents.
“We are a close-knit school community and our hearts are broken by this tragedy. Our thoughts are with Ava’s family and friends during this extremely difficult time,” it added.
According to the Post-Standard, Ava participated in track and field and junior varsity soccer at her school.
St. Mary’s Church was jam-packed with Ava’s friends, classmates, and teammates on Sunday night for a prayer service and candlelight vigil in memory of the terrible youngster.
Ava, an honour roll student, was characterised as a fun-loving girl who might be competitive on and off the field but always respected everyone by her soccer friends, who were wearing their team jerseys.
One classmate told the newspaper, “We’d constantly catch up with each other’s life whenever we saw one other.” “Seeing her was always something I looked forward to.”
Ava “was someone that we can all learn from,” said St. Mary’s pastor the Rev. Clifford Auth. She was the source of great hope in a world that occasionally celebrates disappointment and strife.
Tiffany Stubbmann, Ava’s track coach, expressed astonishment that the team’s fastest player didn’t sign up for the spring season in a statement to the Post-Standard.
To clarify that her daughter had just forgotten the deadline, Heather called.
“I was so relieved. I completely counted on Ava. If I said, ‘Ava do this,’ she’d do it. She was self-directed, had drive and an unprecedented work ethic. And she was fast,” Stubbmann told the Post-Standard.
“She’s one of those special students that reminds you why you love coaching,” she said. “She was a leader, a serious competitor and all-around athlete.”
Every day at lunch, Ava sat across from her good friend and classmate Emily Calkins.
Emily informed the publication in a written note because she was too distraught to speak, “She would always give me her Welch gummies.”
She claimed Ava had expressed to her how much she loved her father and how excited she was to someday establish a family.
Emily stated that Ava wanted children so she could “spoiled them and cherish them forever.”
