OAK GROVE, Ky. (AP) - A domestic dispute near Fort Campbell has left two soldiers dead and a juvenile wounded, authorities said Friday.
Jeremy Demar, 35, of Clarksville, Tennessee, forced his way into a house in Oak Grove, Kentucky, where he had tracked down his estranged wife, 32-year-old Priscilla Ann East, on Thursday night and fatally shot her and 28-year-old Christopher Ryan Hoch, Kentucky State Police said in a statement. East and Hoch were soldiers at the Army post on the Kentucky-Tennessee line, the statement said.
Police say a teenager was slightly injured during a confrontation with Demar, who fled with a young child.
Clarksville police later apprehended Demar and took him into custody. The child wasn’t injured.
Demar was charged Friday with murder, murder-domestic violence, burglary and assault. He is being held at the Montgomery County Jail. Records don’t indicate whether he has an attorney.
The Leaf-Chronicle in Clarksville reports that East had obtained a protective order against Demar in August, but a judge dismissed it in October. It wasn’t clear why.
In her petition for the order, East described threats and acts of violence by Demar.
“I generally feel that my life is in danger and that the violence is escalating,” East wrote in the petition. “He wants me to check in with him every hour at work, arguments are becoming more heated again in the past week. I feel like I am on constant guard.”
She said he had threatened to kill her in February 2016 and had head-butted and choked her until she was unconscious in May.
Fort Campbell said in a statement Friday night that East and Hoch were both specialists and that Hoch was posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant.
East, of Missouri City, Texas, was a health care specialist who joined the Army in 2011 and began serving at Fort Campbell in 2014.
Hoch, of Ferndale, Michigan, was an infantryman who joined the Army in 2013 and arrived at Fort Campbell later that year.
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This version corrects the spelling of Priscilla.
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