VENTURA, California — A retired Ventura County judge, a Cleveland native who is the nephew of boxing promoter Don King, shot and killed his girlfriend before taking his own life, according to multiple reports.
Police were called to the home of Herbert Curtis III, 69, late Sunday night by neighbors who overheard the couple arguing, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Curtis ended up in a standoff with Ventura police, abc7.com reports. Curtis told police he was armed as they attempted to negotiate with him, and they later heard gunshots from inside the home.
A SWAT unit was called in and negotiations continued for about three hours, with Curtis refusing to surrender, according to the Ventura County Star. Using a listening device, police heard Curtis’ girlfriend, Patricia Payne, 54, say she had been wounded.
SWAT officers entered the house after more shots were heard and Curtis shot himself, reports say.
Payne was found alive and taken to a hospital but died of her injuries. No one else was inside the home.
Police are still investigating a motive for the shooting.
Reports say Payne and Curtis had lived in the home together since November. Ventura Police Commander Sam Arroyo tells the County Star that officers had been called to the home several times for various reasons, including twice on Jan. 18 because of verbal disputes.
According to the County Star, Curtis, a nephew of famed boxing promoter Don King, grew up on the East Side of Cleveland and attended Cleveland State University on a track scholarship. He went to the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and went to Ventura in 1975 to work for the district attorney’s office.
Curtis was Ventura County’s first black Superior Court judge, appointed in 1998 and retiring in 2007, the County Star reports. There have been no other black judges since. He was married three times and has two daughters.
“The news of his passing is met with great sadness,” the court’s assistant presiding judge, Kent Kellegrew, said in a statement, according to the Times. “Judge Curtis invested decades of service to the county of Ventura, initially as a criminal prosecutor and thereafter as a judge. The court acknowledges Judge Curtis’ contributions and extends its condolences to his family.”
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