A 57-year-old Florida man is being held without bond after he shot his girlfriend in the head on Sunday when she reportedly ended their engagement.
Timothy Hyder and Natalie “Dawn” Du’Mee had been drinking at a football watch party on Sunday. In the course of the party, an affidavit says, they argued. They returned home and sat on the back porch, continuing the argument, when Du’Mee told Hyder she wasn’t going to marry him and handed over her engagement ring, the Miami Herald reported.
Hyder went upstairs and retrieved a gun from a closet, then returned to the porch and asked Du’Mee if she was serious about calling off the engagement. When she replied that she was, he shot her in the head.
Du’Mee’s daughter, who had been upstairs watching a movie, came downstairs when she heard the gunshot and saw her mom with a gunshot wound. Hyder told her to call 911.
According to the Osceola News Gazette, Hyder told the daughter, “I blew her brains out.”
When police arrived, Hyder, 57, told them he just “snapped,” WKMG reported, although he had taken the time to go upstairs, retrieve his gun, come back downstairs, and ask the Du’Mee if she really didn’t want to marry him before he “snapped” and shot her.
Police said the gun used to kill Du’Mee was left in plain sight on the kitchen counter.
Hyder is being held without bond.
