FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA – An army staff sergeant assigned to work at the Pentagon was in court today. He’s being held without bond on charges of capital murder. Thirty-two year old Ronald Hamilton could face the death penalty.
Meanwhile, multiple communities are mourning the loss of the rookie police officer Hamilton is accused of killing. Twenty-eight year old Ashley Guindon was gunned down during her very first shift of her very first day on the job.
She graduated from high school in New Hampshire, where she was a cheerleader then a US Marine. Her high school yearbook quote reads, “Live for something rather than die for nothing.”
Her principal, Ken Johnson, is overwhelmed by the irony. “A kid who gives her life to community service only to have it taken away the very first day.”
The police department flag in her hometown has been lowered. The rookie officer whose life was cut way too short graduated from a Florida aeronautical university. She was just sworn in to the Prince William County, Virginia Police Department on Friday. Then responded to a domestic violence call Saturday night.
News of the tragedy quickly spread and one Florida professor, Chris Bonner, just happened to click on an Internet headline. “I immediately recognized Ashley as one of my students, and it took the wind right out of me.”
Guindon’s patrol car is being adorned with flowers as folks express their grief. The two other officers injured are expected to recover. After Hamilton surrendered, police searched the home and found one dead woman identified as his 29-year-old wife, Crystal and the couple’s 11-year old son. The boy was not harmed physically, but will grow up without a mom and, possibly, without a dad.
