Crystal Roure knew something awful was about to happen.
Jason Kenney had spent hours drinking while the 49ers game played in his backyard shed.
And a Florida mom told her 12-year-old son to run when her husband went berserk over an NFL game.
Mother's Final Words Saved Her Children
December 22 started like any other evening for the Highland City family.
Kenney, 47, settled into his shed around dinnertime to watch San Francisco beat Indianapolis.
The drinking started early and continued through the game.
Close to midnight, with the 49ers victory secured, Kenney stormed into the house wanting to keep the football on.
Crystal, 38, said no — she was done watching.
The fight escalated fast.
"The argument got really heated," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told reporters.
Crystal screamed for her 12-year-old to get out.
Go to the neighbor's house.
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Call 911.
Now.
The boy heard gunfire as he ran.
Deputies arrived to find Crystal dead on the living room floor, shot in the head.
Her 13-year-old daughter was alive but critically wounded — bullets had torn through her face and shoulder.
One round entered through the bridge of the girl's nose and deflected across the top of her skull.
"She said, 'I begged him, don't shoot me, don't shoot me, don't shoot me, and he shot me anyway,'" Sheriff Judd said, recounting the teenager's words.
The couple's 1-year-old slept through the attack, unharmed in her crib.
Family Knew Kenney Was Dangerous
Relatives told investigators Kenney had been beating Crystal for years.
The sheriff's office had zero domestic violence reports on file.
Kenney's record was clean — no arrests, no charges, nothing.
But the abuse was real.
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Deputies searching the home found a letter Crystal had written to her husband.
"You're drinking, you're using cocaine again," she wrote. "This is not the way the family should be. You need God."
Crystal's sister Stephanie watched the marriage deteriorate.
"After they were married, I know she said he was drinking a lot more but she said that he was going to stop and said he would get help with it," Stephanie told USA Today. "Obviously that didn't happen."
Crystal had been cautious about Kenney meeting her kids.
She waited an entire year after they started dating.
She was protective, careful, skeptical.
They met at church and married in November 2023.
Twenty-five months later, three days before Christmas, he shot her dead over a football game.
Killer Called Sister Before Suicide
Kenney fled in his truck after the shooting.
He dialed his sister in upstate New York from the road.
The confession was brief: "I've done something very, very bad."
He told her she'd see him on the news.
He wasn't going to jail.
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This was the last conversation they'd ever have.
Kenney drove to his deceased father's property in Lake Wales and locked himself in a shed.
Deputies surrounded the building and ordered him out.
One gunshot answered them.
Kenney was dead from a self-inflicted head wound.
"He absolutely destroyed a family," Sheriff Judd said. "When you go in there, there is a beautiful Christmas tree with lots of Christmas presents under the tree, just like the nuclear family should be, and it ends up this way."
The Ugly Truth About Football And Violence
Here's what nobody wants to talk about during Sunday football.
Police reports of domestic violence jump 10% on game days.
Researchers tracked over 750 police departments across America and found the pattern holds year after year.
Alcohol shows up in somewhere between 40% and 60% of domestic violence cases, depending on which study you read.
Men struggling with drinking are two to four times more likely to beat their partners than sober men.
https://twitter.com/USATODAY/status/2004941721394659537?s=20
Throw in the emotional roller coaster of watching your team, add several hours of drinking, and women in abusive homes are in serious danger.
Crystal's sister said the 12-year-old's 911 call gave his older sister a fighting chance.
"My sister died a hero for protecting her children and getting my nephew out of the house to make the 911 call," Stephanie said. "She did that. She saved their lives."
The 13-year-old is recovering from her injuries.
The baby is living with grandparents.
The 12-year-old boy will hear that gunshot in his head for the rest of his life.
Crystal Roure spent her final seconds on earth making sure her children survived an argument over Monday Night Football.
That's the difference between a mother's love and a drunk coward's rage.
Sources:
- Julia Bonavita, "Mom killed shielding kids after husband erupts in rage over NFL game: police," Fox News, January 12, 2026.
- Anna Wright, "Slain mom-of-three 'died a hero' saving her children after husband snapped over NFL game," Daily Mail, January 11, 2026.
- "Florida mom of three killed by husband over NFL game 'died a hero'," USA Today, January 8, 2026.
- National Organization for Women, "After The Whistle: How NFL Games Affect Domestic Violence Rates," December 10, 2024.
