'Suffering alone': Best friend searches for answers after domestic violence tragedy
After a turbulent 23 years of marriage, Penny Lucas was finally packing up and planning to split from her abusive husband.
Penny, a bubbly Zumba instructor and claims adjuster, had arranged to stay with her best friend, Lee Duggar, the night of Jan. 24. But she never showed up.
Duggar wasn’t particularly concerned at first. Penny had asked before to stay in her guest house after fights with her husband, John Lucas. But the couple would smooth things over, and she’d end up canceling.
As the next day rolled around, however, and nobody had heard from her, she began to worry.
Duggar called the Leon County Sheriff's Office Jan. 25 requesting a welfare check at the couple's house in the 1300 block of Gateshead Circle off Buck Lake Road in a neighborhood with sprawling lots dotted with pine trees and setback homes.
She watched as deputies knocked on the front door only to be answered by dog barks. Everything was seemingly normal, and nothing warranted a forced entry.
But Duggar knew something wasn't right — so she pressed.
After about an hour of pleading to get them to check, a deputy went inside the home before returning and saying to her, "There's no easy way to say this, but they're in the house."
He didn't have to say anything more — she immediately knew what he meant.
Penny, 50, and John, 62, were both found dead inside. Penny died from an apparent gunshot wound, and John died from "an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," according to LCSO's emailed update on the case.
The law enforcement agency initially launched a death investigation the day the couple was found but didn't confirm that a murder-suicide occurred until Wednesday.
"It's just mind blowing, it's baffling," Duggar told the Tallahassee Democrat in an interview. "I can't wrap my head around it."
The tragedy underscores the increasing prevalence of domestic violence in the community and the heightened peril victims face when trying to escape their abusers.
Penny Lucas remembered as 'full of life and love for all;' family launches GoFundMe for funeral costs
Penny, always an energetic, happy person, never met a stranger. Duggar said she loved people and cared so deeply it was sometimes annoying.
The two first met and instantly hit it off 11 years ago when Duggar took one of Penny's Zumba classes, a passion they both shared and pursued together. The duo started Zumba at Dr. Mignon's Wellness Center, and Penny went on to teach at Kaos Fitness and Youfit. They dressed like twins and went everywhere together, she said.
Duggar fondly remembers when they went to a Zumba convention and saw the creator of the fitness program. She said Penny tracked him down and dragged her along to convince him to take pictures with them.
"That's just who she was," she said. "She just made you do things that were uncomfortable because she knew that's what you wanted."
Beyond teaching multiple Zumba classes a week, Penny was a worker's compensation claims adjuster, craft guru and a mama's girl.
Family was extremely important to Penny, Duggar said, and she was especially close to her mother.
Penny's nephew started a GoFundMe at www.gofundme.com/f/in-loving-memory-of-penny-lucas to help cover the costs of her memorial service. "My aunt was such a bright light in our community, full of life and love for all," he wrote. "Her passing has shaken us and all those close to her."
An ending no one saw coming
Penny's friends knew her marriage wasn't always the best, but nobody ever thought it would escalate to this.
"I'm questioning everything now," Duggar said. "I never thought anything he did rose to the level of being domestic violence, but it was."
Their relationship started out sweet and fun, but over the years, Duggar said he became more controlling, always picked fights and anytime she was with friends would call her "nine million times." He was always emotionally and verbally abusive, never physically, Penny had told her.
But things had recently taken a turn for the worse. Duggar said he pulled Penny out of a chair by her feet once and also smacked her leg with a stick after she accidentally brushed his face with some sticks that she was carrying.
"To my knowledge, he'd never hit her before then," she said. "That was sort of the final straw that convinced her to leave.
John was arrested decades ago on a felony charge of aggravated battery, according to Leon Circuit Court records. He pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge and was sentenced to six months of probation, which he completed. In 1995, John filed a domestic violence injunction against a previous wife, who filed her own domestic violence injunction against him two days later. Both were voluntarily dismissed. Documents from the cases were not immediately available
His mental health significantly declined over the years, Duggar said, and all of Penny's friends thought her husband could end up harming himself, especially if Penny tried to leave.
"None of us thought he would take her with him," she said.
Duggar said a neighbor allegedly heard the gunshots followed by a woman's screams the night that the murder-suicide presumably happened, but 911 was never called. However — while Duggar said she still would have called the police had she heard a similar sequence of events — sounds like that probably weren't all that uncommon coming from their house.
John ran an airgun dealership called Flatwoods Airguns. Social media accounts show Penny also worked in the business. It's possible he demonstrated guns or conducted target practice on their property, Duggar said. Plus, the two fought and screamed at one another a lot.
"It can be as simple as it's just what (the neighbors have) heard before and didn't realize there was anything wrong," she said.
Domestic violence is 'increasing dramatically'
People don't know what's happening behind closed doors, and this is another tragic example of the most consistent form of violence in the community, State Attorney Jack Campbell said.
"What starts as a slap will eventually escalate to homicide," he said.
Last year, the capital city and county grappled with one of its bloodiest years, tallying 27 murders in 2023. In a story earlier this month, Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said domestic violence was a driving force for many of the homicides. Emily Mitchem, the executive director of Refuge House, said this correlates with the number of calls they're receiving on their hotline.
The organization, which helps victims of domestic violence, found that roughly 65% of its callers reported that their abuser has a firearm in the house and has threatened to use it and kill them. The level of violence and brutality has increased, and more victims are arriving at the shelter with injuries, Mitchem said.
"And we've just seen a tremendous amount of people that are hopeless to stay with their abusers because of the economy and the lack of affordable childcare and other factors," she said.
"Victims are just absolutely terrified of trying to get away," she said. "They know their abuser and what he is capable of."
The Refuge House works with victims to help them create safety plans and provide them with housing if they leave the relationship. Mitchem said they encourage women and men to hide money, have a go-to friend, leave a window open in case they need to jump out of it, remove objects that could be used as a weapon from rooms and more.
The call operators will also work with victims to devise escape plans, but even with a well-thought out strategy, the most dangerous time for a victim is when they try to leave.
"It represents the ultimate loss of power and control by the abuser," she said.
What happened to Penny "is just terrible," she said, and emphasizes the need to build community awareness about the issue, which is "increasing dramatically."
"Whenever there's a tragedy like this, we wonder what if," Mitchem said. "Even the best planned safety escape, even with experts on your side, ultimately, victims are at risk of homicide and it might happen, and it's nobody's fault other than the assailant's."
'It's been really hard'
Trying to help a friend who is living through abuse is extremely hard, Duggar said.
"You don't want to make things worse, but you don't want this to happen either," she said.
Domestic violence is more prevalent than people even realize, she said. And it can be all too easy to think the people that need help are getting help when they aren't.
"Victims of domestic violence are suffering alone," she said.
Growing up around domestic violence herself, Duggar said she thinks "it touches everyone and people need to know that, and people need to know what to look for and ask questions."
If a relationship seems toxic, don't take it at face value, she said. "If you feel like something's wrong, something is probably wrong."
"It's been really hard," she said. "I'm angry at the whole situation. I'm angry that it happened. I'm angry nobody knew. I'm angry I didn't pay more attention when she didn't call me back."
Relationships like these come with a lot of shame and guilt, and regardless of how bad the circumstances are, these people are together because they love each other, she said. There's this sense of responsibility to care for the person, and all of this contributes to a lack of sharing and reporting.
Penny's case was no different. Duggar said Penny was trying to keep John afloat by finding him a therapist and agreeing to continue footing the bills and insurance even after she left him.
She compartmentalized what she told her friends, Duggar said. She never told one person everything, and now all her friends are piecing her stories together, causing them to ask the big question: If she had told at least one of them the whole story or had they tried to put it all together sooner, could they have seen this coming? Could they have saved her?
How to get help
▶If you or your loved ones are struggling with domestic violence, please call the Refuge House 24/7 hotline at 850-681-2111 or email receptionists@refugehouse.com for help.
Elena Barrera can be reached at ebarrera@tallahassee.com. Follow her on X @elenabarreraaa.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee murder of Penny Lucas a domestic violence wakeup call
