(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Shawn Duffey allegedly shot himself and his estranged wife Thursday in a murder–suicide that may have been sparked, in part, by her public allegations calling him a pedophile on TikTok.
Duffey — not to be confused with Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy, who is blissfully married to Fox News star Rachel Campos–Duffy — may have violated an emergency protective order that his victim, 43-year-old Sara Gilson, had requested just six weeks earrlier, The Oklahoman reported.
Police in Owasso, Okla., reported receiving a 911 call at 11:16 p.m. on Thursday and hearing a woman screaming, followed by a gunshot.
A second call came shortly thereafter from Gilson’s son, saying that his stepfather had shot his mother.
Gilson’s first husband and father of her two children, Lyle Landers, said the warning signs had been there since the couple first began dating, according to the New York Post.
“Shawn had been a risk for her since they got together,” said Landers, who separated from Gilson around seven years ago.
“She had been stuck in a relationship where domestic abuse seemed ‘OK,’” Landers added. “I had begged her for five years to get away from him. I had offered to help her, in any way I could, to get away from him. But he seemed to have some sort of control over her, and she couldn’t seem to get away.”
Duffey’s life began to spiral out of control six weeks ago, when he was accused of kissing and fondling one of the 15-year-old players on a girls basketball team he coached.
The girl and her parents promptly filed a police report and obtained a restraining order. Gilson herself obtained one after Duffey “proceeded to threaten suicide and then went on the run.”
Exacerbating matters was the fact that Duffey was a member of the Osage Nation tribe and the incident happened on Indian tribal lands. That triggered federal involvement, with Owasso law enforcement officials referring the “lewd molestation” charge to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
There are no reports of Duffey having violated Gilson’s restraining order prior to Thursday. However, a viral TikTok video that Gilson posted calling her “soon-to-be-ex-husband” a “pedophile” does not seem to have helped ease his volatile state of mind.
Gilson’s video followed a recent trend of clips imitating mock Netflix-style documentaries. In a sad twist of irony, her murder may have helped give it the national exposure she grimly envisioned.
NEW: Woman who did the 'Netflix documentary' trend on TikTok to out her husband as a pedo, killed by her husband.
41-year-old Sara Gilson was found deceased by police at her home in Owasso, Oklahoma.
Days earlier, Gilson shared a video, which has 18M views on TikTok, accusing… pic.twitter.com/gqkzRWngRP
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 26, 2026
Supporters have set up a GoFundMe in Landers’s name to help his two children with Gilson. As of Monday morning, it had raised $29,485.
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
