A terminally ill retired probation officer who shot and killed her ex-daughter-in-law on a posh Upper East Side street before taking her own life had a mysterious note in her pocket when she died, sources said. The New York Post.
“For the police” was written on the note, the source said.
It was found in the pants of shooter Kathleen Lee after she shot and killed ex-daughter-in-law Marissa Galloway on East 88th Street Friday morning local time. Police say the shooting was sparked by a violent custody dispute involving Lee's granddaughter, and could not comment on the contents of the alleged note.
According to The Post, Ms. Galloway, 45, had just put her one-year-old daughter in the back seat of a parked white Honda Civic near the scene of the shooting in an apparent custody battle when Lee shot her in the head and back. , – said the policemen.
Lee then committed suicide. The child was not injured in the shooting.
Ms. Galloway, a special education teacher, was allegedly embroiled in a custody battle over a four-year-old girl she shared with her son, Lee.
Lee, a 65-year-old retired probation officer from Illinois, was battling terminal cancer and lived with her son on East 79th Street while she received treatment.
Lee's daughter declined to comment Saturday when contacted by the Post.
The grandmother often complained to neighbors that Ms. Galloway was abusive to the four-year-old girl, an image that did not fit neighbors' description of the younger woman as a caring, loving mother.
“She was so wonderful and she loved her children,” one resident of the apartment building on East 86th Street in Galloway told The Post with tears streaming down her face.
Between July and November 2021, police prepared five domestic incident reports involving Ms Galloway and her ex. According to sources, the father complained in several messages that his daughter came home with bruises.
Two led to complaints from the Administration for Children that were later found to be unfounded, the sources said.
The two have shared custody since their split, with the father having custody Friday through Monday and Galloway staying with the daughter for the rest of the week, sources said.
According to the police, Lee shot Ms. Galloway once after she put her young daughter and her stroller in the car, then shot her again in the back while Ms. Galloway was on the ground. Lee then committed suicide, said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenney.
Two pistols were found.
Lee was pronounced dead at the scene, while Ms. Galloway was rushed to a nearby medical center where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
This article originally appeared in the New York Post and has been republished with permission
