'It's Like a Nightmare.' Man Killed His Wife and Daughter Before Shooting Himself, Police Say
(SEBEWAING, Mich.) — A police chief says there’s no record of domestic violence calls to a Michigan home where a man is believed to have killed his wife and college-student daughter before fatally shooting himself.
Sebewaing police Chief Bill Owens identified the man as 61-year-old Bob Bonini, his wife as 60-year-old Margo Bonini and their daughter as 21-year-old Katelyn Bonini.
The family was found dead from gunshot wounds around 1 a.m. Thursday after a family friend asked police to do a well-being check. Owens estimated the shootings occurred 12 to 24 hours earlier.
He told MLive.com that his department had never responded to a domestic violence situation at the family’s home.
“They were very active in the community, real good people,” the chief said. “I think that’s probably what makes it so surprising.”
Bob Bonini owned a carpet- and tile-cleaning company in the village north of Detroit, and he and his wife were prominent members of the community, according to MLive.com. The wife worked at the village’s only library, and their daughter — their only child — attended Saginaw Valley State University.
Owens, the village’s chief for the past 10 years, told MLive.com that the shootings were the first deaths from violence in Sebewaing in nearly four decades. He told the Huron Daily Tribune of Bad Axe that Michigan State Police took several weapons from the Bonini family’s home.
The village of about 1,700 people is located on the coast of Saginaw Bay about 95 miles (152 kilometers) north of Detroit.
“It’s like a nightmare, because this doesn’t happen in our town,” Cindy Parker told MLive.com. “You just never imagined that would happen to them.”
Parker graduated from Unionville-Sebewaing Area High School in 1975 with Bob and Margo Bonini.
