On the afternoon of October 21, 2024, a domestic dispute in a Manassas, Virginia, home ended with the shooting death of 36-year-old Curtis Bryant Crabbe. Police found Mr. Crabbe deceased from a gunshot wound on Brinkley Lane; his wife, LaToya Christine Crabbe, then 34, was at the scene and taken into custody. The couple had married in 2019 and lived with their three young children in the lower level of her parents’ home. An obituary described Mr. Crabbe as a dedicated family man.

Investigators reported a fractured marriage and said LaToya Crabbe had asked for a divorce and given her husband 30 days to move out. Her mother, Marilyn Martin, told reporters that Mr. Crabbe had sent threatening text messages two days before the shooting that allegedly threatened to hurt everyone in the house and set it on fire.

Prosecutors charged LaToya Crabbe with second-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, later seeking a first-degree murder indictment after alleging she deleted 78 minutes of Ring security footage from her phone. A 5.5-hour encrypted audio recording later became central to the defense and prosecution’s review. Does anyone have information about the days before October 21, 2024, or the family’s situation that could shed light on what happened?