Father told wife he was going to kill himself, had mentioned killing girls
Before he fatally shot his 16-year-old daughters, Randall Coffland told his wife earlier in the day he was going to kill himself.
And he had mentioned killing the girls a couple of times in the past, his wife said after the shooting, but she never thought he was serious about it, according to a St. Charles police report.
Coffland followed through on the threat last Friday, shooting Brittany and Tiffany Coffland in the head before wounding his wife, Anjum, in the leg. He then fatally shot himself in the head.
The new details emerge in the report released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Daily Herald.
Anjum was talking to a friend and her bosses, with a St. Charles police officer stationed nearby, while she was being treated for her wounds at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva. She had been shot in the left thigh, and the bullet also traveled through her right thigh.
The couple were living separately in St. Charles. Anjum said Randall had visited her at her home Thursday and they drank wine. He told her he wanted them to get back together; she told him she wanted a divorce.
Anjum said Randall left her messages Friday morning, saying he was going to kill himself, and in the afternoon he called and told her that “he had secrets, too,” the report said.
He refused to say more over the phone and asked that she come over, Anjum said. She said she was scared, but they met in the afternoon and went up to his apartment together.
Anjum entered the kitchen, then turned around to find Randall pointing a gun at her, she said. She asked about the girls and he said they were already dead. He shot her in the leg, but she was able to run into the bedroom and lock the door, she said.
Police later found both girls lying down in separate rooms, covered with blankets except for their heads, the report said. It appeared one had been watching a video on a laptop computer before both were killed.
Police found Randall submerged, face down, in water in a bathtub. A cellphone was on the edge of the tub, dialed to “911.” A magazine of gun ammunition was on the bathroom counter.
Names of a neighbor who called police, as well as friends and co-workers of Anjum's who were with her at the hospital, were redacted from the report.
A building neighbor told police she had toured Randall's apartment because he was leaving and she was thinking of moving into the larger unit. When she told him that she was going through a divorce, he replied that he, too, was getting divorced.
The neighbor said when she saw Randall and the girls, they seemed happy.