Local Mother of Two Honored at Vigil for Victims of Domestic Violence
'We Honor Her as a Woman, and as the Mom Warrior She Was’
By Kristin Davis
ADVANCE CORRESPONDENT
On June 1, two men, both fathers—one in upstate New York, the other in eastern Iowa—killed their families. A day later, a father in Florida murdered his.
By the end of the first 48 hours of June, 14 people were dead in the three tragic incidents, including six children and three women, the children’s mothers. Two of the men used guns. One used a knife. Two of the men also killed themselves.
The killings were part of a disturbing national trend, according to a recent report in the Washington Post. While the number of homicides in America continues to decline, family and intimate-partner killings have been increasing at an alarming rate.
At 3:30 p.m. on June 3, that trend came to Fredericksburg when a man killed his children’s mother, and very nearly took the lives of their two young children, after a car pursuit during which the father fired a gun repeatedly into the mother’s car, hitting her multiple times, until her car crashed into a barrier at the corner of Emancipation Highway and College Avenue. The children, 3 and 7, suffered minor injuries from the accident, but survived. Their mother died from the gunshot wounds a few hours later at Mary Washington Hospital.
Fredericksburg police said when they arrived at the accident scene “the suspect vehicle was observed attempting to flee. Officers attempted a traffic stop, the driver failed to yield, and a vehicle pursuit was initiated.”
According to police, when the children’s father reached Wilderness Lane, two-and-a-half miles from the crash, he shot himself and was pronounced dead at the scene.
At a memorial service a week later, friends, family members, and advocates gathered to remember the victim, 28-year-old Stephanie Myers.
“We honor her as a woman,” said Susan Sigmon, Justice Services director at Empowerhouse, a local advocacy and support organization for victims and survivors of domestic violence, “and as the mom warrior she was.”
More than one in five homicides in 2025—21 percent—involved family and intimate-partner killings, according to a recent Post analysis of FBI data. That’s up from 15 percent in 2020.
Local advocates have seen it firsthand. Empowerhouse, which provides confidential domestic violence assistance in the city of Fredericksburg and Stafford, Spotsylvania, King George and Caroline counties, served 4,100 people last year, and Sigmon, who said that in this region alone, 10,000 children witness incidents of domestic violence every year.
In Virginia, she noted, a domestic violence victim is killed every five days.
“Behind every statistic, there is a story,” she said at the memorial for Myers. “Behind every number there is a name.”
‘She did everything right’
For the last three years, Stephanie Myers worked for The Leumas Group, a Fredericksburg-based government contracting agency and real estate services company, where she handled payroll and finance.
Nate Brooks, director of business development, still remembers the day Myers interviewed for the job. “We look for someone who is positive,” he said, and Myers was an ideal fit. “She was always positive. She was a great team player. She was a problem solver. If there was an issue, she didn’t dwell on why. She focused on the solution.”
Latasha Buckner, who worked with Myers for the past year and considered her a friend, said Myers almost always came into work smiling. “She was so bubbly,” Buckner said. “She encouraged other people.”
And Myers had a wonderful sense of humor as well, her friend said, with a laugh that seemed to come from the depths of her soul. “When you heard it, you knew exactly where it came from. And you knew she was having a good time.”
Buckner said that though Myers always tried to check her troubles at the door, the last three to four months had been difficult. “You could tell something was bothering her,” Buckner said, adding that even through what was clearly a difficult time in her personal life in Myers’ relationship with her children’s father, she was very much the woman she’d always been: a light in the office, and a woman deeply devoted to her children.
“She loved her kids,” said Buckner. “She really adored them.”
As Myers grew more and more concerned for her safety, she reported several troubling incidents involving her children’s father to the police. “She did all of the right things,” Buckner said. “A protective order, reporting incidents.”
Hyperbole, a Fredericksburg-area social media company, has reported that a month before the shooting, the man alleged to be responsible for Myers’ killing was arrested while being served with a preliminary protective order. He was charged at that time with a felony count of carrying a concealed weapon, 2nd offense, and a misdemeanor count of public intoxication at an address that matched the apartment complex where the mother lived with her children. Hyperbole also reported that the man, whose name hasn’t been released by city police, admitted to possessing the firearm and admitted that he didn’t have a concealed carry permit.
On a form titled “Checklist for Bail Determinations,” the man was listed as not “likely to threaten, injure or intimidate a prospective witness, juror, victim or family or household member.” Hyperbole reported that his bond was set at $1,500.
The news organization reported that it wasn’t the man’s first encounter with law enforcement— that in December 2016 he was charged in Spotsylvania with shooting in a public place, reckless handling of a firearm, and carrying a concealed weapon, all misdemeanors. According to court records, the man was sentenced to 90 days in jail with all but 10 days suspended.
Hyperbole also reported that on the afternoon of Myers’ death, a memo was posted at the apartment complex where Myers and her children lived, that shortly before Myers was killed, she had just backed into a parking space when a man came out of the bushes with a gun and shot at her vehicle. Myers then fled, her two children in the car with her.
The gunman followed in his own car, and Myers was killed a short time later near the University of Mary Washington campus.
During Thursday evening’s vigil, Myers’ friends from work were still trying to wrap her head around what they said was a preventable killing.
“It’s tough,” said Brooks, her supervisor. “I feel like we didn’t do enough to help her.”
Myers’ co-workers, two of whom were with her “in her final hours fighting,” said they’ve been asking themselves since her death what they could have done differently.
“Could we have encouraged her to relocate?” said one. “Could we have pressured her to get a hotel?”
Another responded, pointedly, “Let’s put the blame where it needs to be.”
‘Mom Warrior’
Reggie Samuel, owner of Leumas group said during the vigil that Myers was a deeply private person. “She wouldn’t want this to be about her,” he said. “She wouldn’t want her face to be everywhere. She would want us to do something.”
To that end, multiple local organizations set up booths around the James Monroe High School track where friends, coworkers and family gathered to pay tribute: Empowerhouse, the Rappahannock Community Services Board, and Be the Light in the Darkness, a faith-based organization for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, childhood abuse and trauma.
Samuel added that Myers “was a person of action” in her professional life, and would have wanted the vigil held in her name to be focused on the broader issue of domestic violence, which so often remains hidden until a tragedy forces it into public view, and to let the community know that help and resources are available.
“She would want to make sure this didn’t happen to anyone else,” said one coworker. “This is definitely what she would have wanted— to help other people.”
Myers’ brother, Stefon, spoke briefly of their family’s heartbreak but also their resolve. “I hope there is an awakening that comes from this tragedy,” he said. “Help is available.”
Sigmon of Empowerhouse talked about the helplessness and hopelessness often experienced by victims of domestic violence—the feeling that there is no way out.
But that’s not the case, she said: “We are here. You may not have planned for us. But we have planned for you. … We are here and ready to walk this journey with you, one step at a time.”
As the thick, late-afternoon heat gave way to darkening skies and gusting winds from an approaching summer storm, boxes of candles sat unused.
Instead, as the crowd made its way around the track, cellphone lights flickered in the growing darkness in honor of the “mom warrior.”
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Empowerhouse provides free and confidential services to domestic abuse survivors in Fredericksburg and the surrounding region, and operates a 24-hour crisis hotline at 540-373-9373. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is also available 24 hours a day at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or by texting START to 88788.
