It was supposed to be a regular, quiet night in Bentonville. Then a late-night phone call changed everything. Someone asked the local police to check on a home on Holly Drive.
Officers rolled up to the house around two in the morning on June 11. They walked up to the front door for a standard welfare check. They had no idea they were about to walk into a nightmare.
Inside the house, the scene was completely silent. Officers found two people dead from gunshot wounds. One of them was 44-year-old Jennifer L. Howard. She was a mother, and her life was cut short in her own home.
The news got even heavier as detectives started looking for answers. They quickly realized this was a horrific case of murder-suicide. Jennifer was killed by someone she knew intimately.
Police confirmed that her 22-year-old son, Jaden Colby Howard, was the shooter. He fired the fatal shots at his mother. Right after that, he turned the gun on himself and took his own life.
It is the kind of tragedy that shakes a local community to its core. Neighbors woke up to flashing police lights but authorities assured everyone there was no outside danger. The violence was strictly contained inside the residence.
Detectives are still actively working the case to piece together the timeline. They want to find out what led up to this awful event. Right now, officials have not released any details about a possible motive.
The police department is keeping the investigation open as standard procedures go on. They released the names after telling the family. They are asking anyone who knows anything to give them a call.
