Neighbor expresses shock at murder-suicide in Greene County
MORGAN TWP. — If Kevin Teagarden got a citation for speeding, one of his neighbors said he would have been “shocked.”
“Something like this just blows me away,” said Shirl Barnhart, a longtime supervisor in Morgan Township who lives four doors down from the home where autopsy results determined that Teagarden killed his wife and two children before killing himself.
State police said Teagarden’s body and that of his wife, Tammy, 40; daughter, Madison Mae Teagarden, 8; and son, Kevin Richard Teagarden Jr., 22 months; were found at their Chartiers Road home Sunday night. Madison Teagarden was a third-grade student at Jefferson-Morgan Elementary School.
Police said at a Monday press conference in Waynesburg that there was a weapon found at the scene, but at that time they did not identify the type of weapon or how the four died. Police said they expected to release additional details after an autopsy and investigation is complete.
Autopsy results that were officially released Tuesday evening by the Greene County coroner’s office stated that the preliminary cause of death for each of the four members was a single gunshot wound, and that the deaths of Tammy, Kevin Jr. and Madison Teagarden were ruled as homicides, while the death of Kevin Teagarden Sr. was ruled a suicide.
“For something like that, he’d have to snap. It would have to be something major. I’ve never even seen him fight,” Barnhart said.
Police said during the Monday press conference that evidence suggests the Teagardens were recently estranged from one another.
Around noon Sunday, Barnhart said he passed Kevin Teagarden on their street driving his restored Chevrolet Chevelle.
“He waved and smiled at me as he passed me in his car,” Barnhart said. “It’s amazing what 11 hours does.”
Barnhart said he has known Kevin Teagarden since Teagarden was a little boy, and nothing in his personality would have led the longtime supervisor to think he was capable of what police said might have happened.
“Kevin was a real good-natured boy, always smiling, and never had a cross word to say to anyone,” Barnhart said. “It’s just unreal that this happened.”
Barnhart said he knew of no underlying issues with the family and said there seemed to be no warning signs that anything was even a bit amiss, let alone anything that would have led to what police said occurred on Sunday evening.
The community is still in shock, Barnhart said.
“If you talk to anyone who knows them, they’re just sick about it. They’re in disbelief,” he said.
The Teagardens, Barnhart said, lived in an “immaculate” house that Kevin Teagarden rebuilt and fixed up, using a background in carpentry. What happened inside there led neighbors in the small community to sit up and worry when they found out that Kevin Teagarden might have harmed his family and then went on the run in nearby woods.
“You hear something like this, and you can’t sleep the rest of the night. That sense of security you had in your home is gone for a while. You go on the defensive,” Barnhart said.
But as details of what occurred came out, Barnhart said the small, quiet community has settled into a state of shock.
“I’ve been a township supervisor for 22 years. There are very, very few things like this, and this is probably the worst I’ve ever seen. You’d never expect anything like this from him,” Barnhart said.
And with their shock, he said, comes questions.
“Even after people found out he killed his family, I still haven’t heard one bad word about him. It’s ‘What happened? Why did he do this?’,” Barnhart said. “They’re searching for answers instead of placing blame.”