August 4, 2006: Post-Abortion Murder-Suicide

Laura Grunas

On August 4, 2006, 30-year-old Laura Grunas, a police officer in Plantation, Florida, shot her boyfriend, 31-year-old firefighter Robert Peat, dead inside his home. Grunas then turned the gun on herself. The couple had been together for about a year. 

Neighbors reported that Laura was hysterical the last day of her life, standing outside Peat's garage yelling, "Why is everyone blaming this on me? He killed my baby." The argument became so loud that neighbors called the police.

In what those close to the pair believed to have been a mutual decision, Laura had aborted the couple's baby a few weeks earlier. Michael Roth, a friend of Peat, told police that Peat had been "enormously upset" about the abortion. "He was a lot more religious than me and didn't believe in that, but they had felt that that was the right thing to do for whatever reasons."

Peat had called Roth and asked him to come over shortly before the shooting. Roth said that when he arrived, Grunas became upset, saying, "If, when he felt the need to call, did he tell you about killing my baby?"

Robert Peat

Peat also called the police, and when two officers arrived, Grunas, a colleague of theirs, became furious. They asked her to leave, and she complied. Peat asked Roth to remain with him, and Roth recommended that Peat get a restraining order. "Thirty seconds after I tried to make that suggestion, his phone started ringing. .... And then she started banging on the front door."

Laura then used a Smith & Wesson 9mm, her work-issued handgun, to shoot out the sliding glass door to the kitchen. Roth, who suffered minor injuries in the incident, fled the kitchen through the shot-out door and called 911.

Sources:

• "Girlfriend kills firefighter, herself," Palm Beach Post, August 6, 2006
• "Report Details Murder-Suicide," South Florida Sun-Sentinel, September 22, 2006
• "Witness Sheds Light on Motive in Tragedy," Orlando Sun-Sentinel, September 22, 2006
• "Murder-suicide tied to abortion," Orlando Sun-Sentinel, September 24, 2006