A Deputy Chief. A Mother. A Wife. Now She's Gone.

The murder of retired San Francisco Deputy Chief Ann Mannix and her daughter has left me with questions I cannot answer.

Today I learned of the deaths of Ann Mannix and her 24-year-old daughter, Katie.

Ann was a retired Deputy Chief of Police with the San Francisco Police Department.

She was the first woman to join their SWAT team and eventually became the first woman to lead it.

She was married. She had three children. She dedicated nearly 35 years of her life to policing.

She was a trailblazer.

And on Sunday, October 11, 2026, at approximately 5 p.m., Ann and her youngest daughter were shot and killed inside their family home.

The man police believe killed them was Ann's estranged husband, Kevin Mannix, a retired police sergeant from the same department.

He then took his own life.

There is so much to unpack in those few sentences.

Two police officers. Two lengthy careers. Three children raised into adulthood. Years of marriage, shared experiences, and exposure to the very worst of humanity.

He retired in 2018. Ann retired in 2021.

They had made it through decades of policing.

And yet, at 68 years old, he allegedly picked up a gun and ended the lives of his wife and youngest child.

On what, to the rest of the world, appeared to be an ordinary Sunday afternoon.

I cannot stop thinking about it.

Maybe because so much of Ann's life looks like mine.

I spent 27 years in policing.

I was a Deputy Chief of Police.

I am married to another police officer who is still working.

We raised two children into adulthood.

And I am now retired.

The similarities are impossible for me to ignore.

I know what policing can do to a person.

The years of exposure take a toll. There is no denying that the things we see, the decisions we make, the pressure we carry, and the trauma we absorb can change how we think, feel, and experience the world.

Who you are as a person matters. Your biology, personality, relationships, the incidents you attended, the support you received, and the support you were denied all play a role.

And then one day, the career ends.

For me, leaving policing was painful.

People I believed would remain in my life disappeared almost immediately when I was no longer "one of them."

People who had called me their "sister in blue" for years suddenly seemed to forget that I existed.

It is an incredibly difficult experience to dedicate so much of your life to an organization, to build relationships that you believe will last forever, and then discover that some of those relationships were apparently conditional on your employment.

Only a select few remained.

I know how that affected me.

But I don't know what retirement was like for Ann or Kevin.

I don't know whether years of exposure to trauma played any role in what happened.

I don't know whether their relationship had a history of violence that was hidden from the people around them.

I don't know what conversations took place behind closed doors.

What we do know, from recent reporting, is that Ann and Kevin were estranged and that their marriage was ending.

That is an important detail.

But it still doesn't tell us what happened inside that relationship or what led to those final moments.

I don't know whether Kevin had a mental illness.

And I want to be very clear about something.

Just because someone commits murder-suicide does not automatically mean they were mentally ill.

Sometimes violence is about possession. Sometimes it is about control. Sometimes it is about an inability or unwillingness to accept that another person has the right to leave.

The thinking can become, "If I can't have you, no one can."

That is not love.

That is not a justification.

And it is not something we should excuse as simply a person having a bad day.

I don't know who Kevin shot first.

It breaks my heart to even imagine the possibility that Ann watched her daughter die before she herself was killed.

I think about what Ann must have experienced in those final moments.

The fear.

The disbelief.

The horror of realizing that the person with whom she had built a life was now threatening everything she loved.

And Katie.

Twenty-four years old.

Her entire adult life still ahead of her.

A daughter who should have had decades to experience everything life had to offer.

Instead, both of their lives were taken.

One of Ann's other children reportedly escaped the home alive.

I cannot begin to imagine the trauma that surviving child and the rest of the family will carry.

There is something particularly devastating about violence committed by someone who was supposed to love and protect you.

And perhaps that is why this case has affected me so deeply.

Because I have spent much of my life trying to understand the very worst things human beings do to one another.

And even after 27 years of policing, I still struggle to understand this.

The reality of murder-suicide

I have learned over the years that we need to be careful about judging people for the struggles they carry.

I don't particularly care how much someone drinks, whether they exercise enough, how they spend their time, or whether their life looks the way society thinks it should.

We all have challenges.

We all have moments when we are not at our best.

But there is a line.

And that line is crossed when your decisions begin to harm other people.

As a police officer, I spent 27 years responding to the consequences of those decisions.

And murder-suicide remains one of the most devastating examples.

According to the Violence Policy Center's 2026 report, American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States, an estimated nine murder-suicide incidents occur every week in the United States.

More than 1,000 people die in these incidents annually.

The research found that:

• 92% of perpetrators were male.

• 65% of incidents involved an intimate partner.

• 87% involved a firearm.

• 76% of homicide victims were female.

And in cases involving an intimate partner, almost all of the partners killed were women.

These are not simply random acts of violence.

They are disproportionately acts committed by men, often against women with whom they have shared intimate relationships.

Sometimes children are killed as well.

Researchers have identified circumstances involving possessiveness, coercive control, relationship breakdown, threats, and a desire to punish a partner.

Children can become victims of that violence, sometimes as a way of inflicting the greatest possible suffering on the other parent.

Other cases may involve different circumstances, including severe psychological crises.

But there is no single explanation that accounts for every murder-suicide.

And we should never assume we understand the motive in an individual case before the facts are known.

Why did this one hit me so hard?

I keep coming back to that question.

Why does this particular tragedy feel so personal?

I have read about countless murders over my career.

I have attended scenes that most people would struggle to comprehend.

I have seen families destroyed by violence.

So why Ann?

I think the answer is obvious.

She was a female Deputy Chief of Police.

Like me.

She was a mother.

Like me.

She was married to a police officer.

Like me.

She had retired after dedicating most of her adult life to policing.

Like me.

She was 65 years old.

She should have been enjoying the next chapter of her life.

Instead, she is gone.

And so is her daughter.

There is also something else that I cannot ignore.

Ann was an accomplished police leader. She had worked in a profession where recognizing danger, assessing risk, and responding to violence were part of her life.

And yet none of those professional accomplishments could guarantee her safety in her own home.

Police officers are human beings.

We are not immune to depression, anxiety, relationship breakdowns, anger, loneliness, trauma, or domestic violence.

Our training does not protect us from every personal crisis.

Our rank does not make us invulnerable.

And our years of service do not somehow guarantee that we will know how to navigate the most painful moments of our own lives.

We are people first.

And sometimes I think we forget that.

I wanted to find meaning in this tragedy.

When I started writing, I hoped that by the time I reached the end, I would have figured out what I wanted to say.

Some lesson.

Some explanation.

Something that would make sense of what happened to Ann and Katie.

But I haven't.

I don't know what Kevin Mannix was thinking when he picked up that gun.

I don't know whether there were warning signs that people recognized, warning signs that were missed, or circumstances that no one outside the family understood.

I don't know whether someone could have intervened.

And I don't know whether this tragedy could have been prevented.

What I do know is that two women are dead because of another person's actions.

And that should never be lost in our attempts to understand the person responsible.

Understanding behaviour is not the same as excusing it.

I believe we need to talk more openly about the dark places our minds can go.

Fear. Anxiety. Depression. Loneliness. Anger. Shame. Trauma.

Thoughts that frighten us.

Thoughts that we don't want anyone else to know we are having.

Sometimes people catastrophize, constantly imagining terrible things happening to those they love.

Sometimes people experience thoughts of harming themselves.

And sometimes people experience thoughts of harming others.

Having an unwanted, intrusive thought is not the same as wanting to act on it. But when thoughts become threats, plans, or a belief that someone deserves to be hurt, that is a serious warning sign.

We need to stop treating the decision to ask for help as a weakness.

We need to stop believing that we should be able to handle everything on our own.

And we need to stop pretending that people who have spent their careers helping others will somehow always know how to help themselves.

But I also want to say something to anyone who is living with a partner whose anger frightens them.

You do not have to wait until someone physically assaults you to recognize that your relationship may be dangerous.

Threats, intimidation, controlling behaviour, stalking, and the belief that you are not allowed to leave are not signs of love.

They are reasons to take your safety seriously.

And if you are thinking about leaving a dangerous relationship, please seek confidential support to make a safety plan. Leaving can be a particularly dangerous time.

Life is hard. But violence is not inevitable.

I have written before about the challenges of life.

About the days when getting out of bed feels difficult.

About the loss of identity that can come with retirement.

About anxiety, sadness, anger, and the feeling that perhaps things will never get better.

But they can.

Bad days can become better days.

Bad weeks can become manageable weeks.

Even the darkest periods of our lives can eventually soften.

What feels unbearable today may not feel the same way a month from now, a year from now, or five years from now.

And if you cannot see that possibility for yourself, please allow someone else to help you find it.

Talk to someone.

Tell them what is going on inside your head.

If you are frightened by your own anger, get help before it becomes someone else's tragedy.

If you are thinking about harming yourself or someone else, seek immediate professional support.

If you are living with someone who makes you afraid, tell someone you trust and reach out to a domestic violence service.

You do not need to wait until something terrible happens.

I wish I could finish this article with some profound understanding of what happened to Ann and Katie Mannix.

I can't.

I am left thinking about a woman who dedicated her life to serving others.

A mother who raised three children.

A police leader who broke barriers for other women.

And a 24-year-old daughter whose life was only beginning.

Two lives.

Two futures.

An entire family changed forever.

What a loss.

So much pain.

And for what?

I hope that anyone reading this who is struggling with anger, fear, depression, trauma, loneliness, or despair recognizes that asking for help is not the end of their story.

It may be the very thing that allows them, and the people they love, to have a future.

And for anyone living in fear of another person's anger, please know that you deserve safety.

Life is hard.

Sometimes unimaginably hard.

But the worst moments do not have to become the final moments.

Don't forget that. Ever.

In memory of Ann and Katie Mannix.