NIMISHILLEN TOWNSHIP, Ohio — A woman called the police from a closet at a home in Nimishillen Township northeast of Canton, telling a dispatcher she saw her aunt get shot.
Deputies from the Stark County Sheriff’s Office found 70-year-old Lorene Denton dead on the kitchen floor and saw the suspect, 64-year-old Jeffrey Denton, seated in the kitchen before he killed himself as deputies entered the home.
Around 3 a.m. Wednesday, dispatchers got two 911 calls from the home on Broadway Avenue Northeast outside the city of Louisville.
A woman who said she was the couple’s niece was on one 12-minute 911 call, whispering to a dispatcher that she was hiding in an upstairs closet.
She described what she witnessed, how she and her aunt tried to escape, and begged for deputies to get there quickly.
In a 911 call from Lorene Denton, she frantically told a dispatcher that her husband was beating her and her niece and that guns were downstairs.
At one point during the call, she said her husband went down to the basement. Before the call ended after 5 minutes, she could be heard screaming, and the phone seemed to drop.
Her adult niece then called 911.
She quietly told a dispatcher she heard at least three gunshots and saw her aunt get shot in the leg.
The sheriff’s office says the niece made it out safely and was checked at a hospital.
Neighbors were left in shock, including Sarah Lewis, who lives across the street.
“What her thoughts are going to be from all this it’s terrorizing,” Lewis said.
Other neighbors say the Jeffrey Denton they knew was kind and helpful, and often worked on people’s lawn mowers.
“He would be out in the yard doing work. She would be in and out,” Lewis said.
They say they never saw anything that suggested an ending like this.
"Dumbfounded, I had no idea that anything like that would be happening,” Lewis said.
