A woman is dead, and her son is in the hospital, after Akron police say the woman's boyfriend stabbed her and then opened fire inside the family's Akron home early Saturday.
Police said it happened around 2:10 a.m. on the 500 block of Miles Avenue. That's when they say Gregory Tillman, 38, got into a fight with Rebecca Lee Guthrie, 44, who was his girlfriend.
When officers arrived, they found Guthrie lying on the living room floor with multiple stab wounds and a gunshot wound.
Officers say that Tillman first grabbed Guthrie and then shot her in the head as she was trying to get away.
Guthrie's 25-year-old son tried to grab the gun, and he was shot in the face, say police. He is recovering at Summa Akron City Hospital in stable condition. His brother, Marquis Terrell, said he expects him to come home tomorrow.
Terrell was upstairs in his bedroom when he heard arguing downstairs.
"People argue," Terrell said. "It’s not like something that would even think would lead to something like this, but they were just arguing, and then it just happened so quickly."
Terrell said that Tillman pointed the gun at him, and it clicked twice, and then he tried to shoot his brother, and it clicked again. He said Tillman dropped the gun and ran away. Akron police arrested him nearby. He was charged with murder and felonious assault.
Terrell said none of this makes any sense. His mother worked three jobs and gave Tillman, whom she had been with for five or six years, everything he wanted.
"She fed him, clothed him, did all that. He didn’t have a job. All he did was sit around all day," Terrell said.
Despite that, he said his mother wanted to marry him.
Now, her son is planning his mother's funeral.
"I check my phone every day trying to make sure if she called me or not, like she usually does," he said.
Tillman is charged with murder, felonious assault, domestic violence, vandalism and having weapons under disability.
Court records show Tillman's legal troubles go back 20 years including drug, weapons and domestic violence convictions in Lorain County.
