CLEVELAND — Could details from a newly released personnel file help piece together the mystery of why investigators say a Stark County woman shot and killed a Tennessee sheriff’s deputy last month?
Khristi Cunningham resigned from her job as a corrections officer at Mansfield’s Richland Correctional Institute last September after less than two years on the job.
According to a copy of that letter obtained by News 5 Investigators through a public records request to the Ohio Department of Corrections, Cunningham referred to her resignation as “under protest” and “not voluntary.”
Instead, Cunningham claimed it was a result of “conditions so intolerable that no reasonable employee could remain.”
The 44-year-old also said she was forced to take “stress leave,” eventually exhausting her leave time, "despite two physicians supporting continued leave for mental-health treatment.”
Cunningham also claimed, “The Department’s conduct has shattered my mental health.”
Michael Benza, an attorney who has practiced criminal defense law for more than 30 years and is a professor at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law, reviewed the letter.
“If it’s written by her, it does raise some significant concerns about her mental health issues,” said Benza. “There isn’t anything that makes any sort of logical sense about the crime, but if you start to add in issues of mental health, maybe there’s something there that explains what’s going on.”
Benza believes the letter plus statements to News 5 from a neighbor suggesting that Cunningham had not been seen at her home for weeks before the shooting, "indicates somebody whose life appears to be unraveling."
Benza also pointed out something else about Cunningham’s letter.
“She is raising grievances regarding law enforcement, that is corrections officers,” said Benza. “The victim in this case is law enforcement. You would want to explore, is there a connection between that?”
In court records, investigators accused Cunningham of firing a shot outside a Martin, Tennessee, hotel and then calling 911 to report the shooting.
Authorities said Cunningham then positioned her vehicle to watch law enforcement respond to the call.
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A state agent wrote that when the deputy attempted to question Cunningham, she “produced a pistol, and immediately shot Deputy Bonham.”
Investigators said Cunningham then shot the deputy three more times after he was incapacitated on the ground.
They say she then fired two more shots at police before she was arrested.
Cunningham is charged with first-degree murder.
Benza said it’s too early to draw conclusions from Cunningham’s resignation letter, but believes it’s a piece of the puzzle that prosecutors and defense will attempt to put together.
But he said the letter could become a key defense exhibit.
“If this is an issue of mental health, the defense is really going to be putting that front and center,” said Benza.
When contacted about Cunningham’s claims, a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the department “disagrees with the characterizations Miss Cunningham made in her resignation letter.”
The attorney listed in court records for Cunningham has not responded to a request for comment on the letter.
Cunningham is scheduled to be in court for a preliminary hearing on the murder charge Friday morning.
