Police give more details in Fountain shooting

Posted: May 18, 2011 11:20 PM by John Romero
Updated: May 19, 2011 8:30 PM

We're learning more about the hours leading up to Monday's tragic shooting in Fountain that critically wounded 27 year old Shannon Paolini and killed her 2 year old son Gavin.

Fountain Police say the day of the shooting, Gammell Perez, Shannon's boyfriend and Gavin's father, made a curious purchase at a nearby Wal-Mart. "At 12:58 the suspect purchased a gasoline container and some rope from the Wal-Mart here locally." explains Fountain Police Chief Todd Evans.

From there police say Perez parked his van a couple blocks away from Paolini's home leading them to believe she had no idea he was there. A few hours later dispatch received a panicked 911 call from Paolini. Even after she stopped talking, she left the phone on and two could be heard arguing. "That conversation is graphic in nature and at this point we're attempting to enhance that communication." explains Evans.

When police arrived they saw Perez in the window holding a 9mm pistol. He yelled at officers once to leave. When they didn't he gave one final and chilling warning. "(He said) If you don't (vulgarities) get out of here, I'm going to go in and kill my family. At that point he starts a countdown of 5, 4, 3 and so on and so forth." says Evans.

A short time later Paolini bolted from the home, but Perez was right behind her, firing a gun.
Police say she was shot 5 times as she tried to run across the street. She collapsed in front of a neighbor's vehicle. After that police say the home was silent. But hours later, when a robot entered the home, both Perez and baby Gavin were dead each from a single gunshot wound to the head. From other evidence found it seems this was to be Perez's final stand. "It (the robot) determined that there was a very high reading of gasoline inside the residence itself. Then we did another gas reading upstairs and it was determined that because there had been so much gasoline that had been spread inside the residence, it was