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ARDMORE, Ala. (AP) — A man with a history of domestic violence killed himself after using a rifle to kill three more people including his ex-wife, who had complained in court documents that he was harassing her, sheriff's officials in Alabama said Monday.
Darwin Brazier, 43, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Limestone County on Sunday. Earlier, Brazier's ex-wife Debra Hartley Rivera and two other people were found dead at a house in Ardmore.
Authorities identified the other two victims as Rivera's current husband, Radex Rivera, 41, and their roommate, Timothy James Hayword-Boger.
Officers were alerted after a woman told a dispatcher she had received a text message from Brazier saying he had just killed his ex-wife and the others and that he was going to kill himself, according to a news release from Limestone County Sheriff Mike Blakely's office.
Officers found the bodies of the three people on the back porch of the house where they lived, the release said, and evidence showed about 30 rounds were fired from a rifle.
Brazier later shot himself with a handgun near his home when confronted by officers, the statement said.
"This was an unnecessary and unfortunate escalation of what appears to be a long-term history of domestic violence," Blakely said in the statement.
Rivera claimed in court papers filed last year that Brazier had stalked her, stolen from her, threatened to take her two children and gotten another man to harass her. Earlier this year, she wrote in another court document that Brazier was upset that she had remarried.
"All of this activity has (been) going on for a year but has become worse since I was given custody of (the) kids," she wrote in a complaint filed March 1. "I know he has anger towards me and in (the) past has caused physical pain to me."
Circuit Judge B. Chadwick Wise twice denied her requests for orders for protection from Brazier but didn't explain his reasoning in either brief order.
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