More on the shooting from yesterday

<—- Another entry That Way <——-

The Daytona Beach News-Journal

Woman shoots sleeping boyfriend
Wounded, man drives to hospital; girlfriend kills herself

By SCOTT WYLAND
Staff Writer

Last update: December 30, 2005

PORT ORANGE — A man woke up Thursday with a bloodied face, drove himself to the hospital and discovered that his girlfriend had shot him in the head while he slept, police said.

Emma “Wanda” Lorene Larsen, 65, shot live-in boyfriend Glenn Betterley, 53, then hours later after talking on the phone with police, fatally shot herself in the head at their Port Orange mobile home, police said.

Doctors at Halifax Medical Center found a bullet lodged in Betterley’s brain and surgically removed it. He was reported in serious condition.

“Apparently he’s going to be fine,” said Cmdr. Bill Schultz, a Port Orange police spokesman.

Betterley told police he woke up at 4:30 a.m., noticed blood on his face and asked Larsen whether she had hit him. She said she didn’t know.

Betterley tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t stop the bleeding. At 6:30 a.m. he drove to work and left his boss a note saying he was heading to the hospital.

Police responded at 7:52 a.m. to the report of a gunshot victim at the emergency room. Larsen had shot Betterley with a small-caliber pistol, police reports say.

A half-hour later, police spoke with Larsen on the phone, then went to her home on Orange Avenue, just south of Commonwealth Boulevard. They forced their way in and found she had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Larsen co-owned the mobile home with a man named Roger Morrison.

Neighbors said Thursday she was quiet and never had disruptive fights with her boyfriends.

“They just stayed to themselves,” said Joseph Woodall, who lives with roommates across the street from the couple.

One of his roommates’ children, Whitney McLain, 9, said she heard gunfire just before police arrived. She and her younger siblings then woke up Woodall.

Lisa LeRoex, who lives three doors down from Larsen, said she heard a gunshot just after 8 a.m.

“It was kind of shocking,” LeRoex said. “This neighborhood is peaceful and quiet.”

Murder-suicides and attempted murder-suicides are on the rise, and no one has done definitive research into this phenomenon, said Gail Gregory, co-chairwoman of the Volusia-Flagler Suicide Prevention Coalition.

“I don’t know what that’s related to, but it’s frightening,” Gregory said.

Thursday’s incident is the second in Port Orange this year in which a person committed suicide with a gun after shooting someone else. In May, William Malcomson fatally shot his wife, Cheryl, then turned the gun on himself.

Last year, a Port Orange man fatally shot his brother-in-law and then killed himself.

Still, Cmdr. Tim Girard said these types of shootings are relatively rare in the city.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” Girard said.

scott.wyland@news-jrnl.com