Prosecutors: Idaho officer murder-suicide was premeditated

BELLEVUE, Idaho (AP) - Prosecutors in Idaho have said a former police officer fatally shot a woman he had been dating before shooting himself last year in what they confirmed to be a murder-suicide.

Blaine County Prosecutor Matt Fredback said Monday former Hailey police officer Jared Murphy, 28, shot and killed Bellevue resident Ashley Midby, 34, in an office adjacent to the coffee house where she worked after he was fired from his job because of a domestic dispute three days earlier, The Idaho Mountain Express reported.

The Blaine County prosecuting attorney's office found Murphy's actions in October 2020 amounted to "premeditated, intentional murder," Fredback said. "Murphy's subsequent suicide prevents any opportunity to bring him to justice for this heinous and cowardly act."

Police responded to a domestic disturbance call from the home on Oct. 19. Prosecutors said Midby allegedly told the officers she had "suffered verbal and emotional abuse" from Murphy.

Police Chief Steve England placed Murphy on administrative leave the following day and fired him on Oct. 22, the same day of the shooting.

Murphy joined the Hailey Police Department in 2018, the same year he and Midby began dating, prosecutors said. The couple lived together in Bellevue, about 130 miles east of Boise.