AURORA | An Aurora man who lost his job told police he couldn’t bear the thought of his wife living on the streets and shot her in the head while she slept, but he couldn’t complete his planned murder-suicide by shooting himself, according to a police affidavit.
Phil Jay Atchue, 60, called 911 from a bus stop near his apartment complex at 927 S. Ivory Circle at about 11 p.m. July 6.
“I shot my wife yesterday morning,” Atchue told the police dispatcher just after 11 p.m., according to police.
When officers arrived, they found Atchue waiting at the bus stop wearing a Raiders t-shirt, a hoodie and shorts pants, just as he’d described himself to dispatchers.
Inside his apartment, officers discovered the body of Kay Page, 61, lying in bed under blankets, with a pillow over her head, dead from gunshots. A handgun sat on the kitchen table in the next room.
Paramedics pronounced her dead at 11:21 p.m.
In a detailed confession to Aurora police detectives, Atchue said that he had been fired from his job at a sign and barricade company two months earlier and had been hiding it from his wife ever since.
“She didn’t know,” Atchue told investigators during an interview. “I’d leave for ‘work’ every day like normal. But the money was gone. Bills weren’t getting paid. The rent check bounced. The next step was gonna be homeless. Wasn’t gonna do that to her, so I put her out of her misery.”
Atchue said he had started making plans for what he expected to be a murder-suicide since May 5, when he lost his job. He said he saw no prospects for getting another job, primarily because he consumed a lot of marijuana and would have to wait at least three months to pass a drug test, Atchue told police.
Kay Page continued working her job at Lowe’s, but Atchue said they couldn’t survive on her income alone. He never told her about his job loss and stopped paying their bills. When the rent was due July 4, he wrote a check knowing there was no money in the bank to cover it.
So he decided to kill her and then himself the next day before she discovered what was happening with the couple’s finances.
“She was still sleeping,” Atchue said. “So I get up, put my shorts on, grabbed my gun, and shot her in the head twice.”
During the interview he made a sound like two gunshots as he described his actions, according to police detectives.
The two had been together for 20 years in what Atchue described as a common-law marriage. He told detectives they rarely argued and that Kay had done nothing to provoke him.
“There was no fight,” he said. “She didn’t deserve it. But I couldn’t let her end up on the street. I did what I did. Not proud of it, but I did it.”
He said Kay was estranged from two children, and in 20 years together, he’s never met any of her family. After the shooting, Atchue said he put two pillows over her head and stayed inside the apartment the entire day, contemplating suicide.
“I racked the slide to shoot myself, but a live round popped out,” he said. “I just sat there. Couldn’t do it.”
He said he did not use anything to muffle the sound of the gunshots and was surprised that neighbors did not report the gunfire, because it was so loud.
Investigators found a live round on a small plastic dresser next to the bed and two shell casings. One round was on the bed and another round was on the floor.
Page had been lying on her right side when she was shot in the left side of her head, according to the affidavit. Police said they saw no signs of a struggle.
Atchue told detectives he showered after the shooting and had no blood on his body other than a shaving cut behind his ear.
Detectives said that Atchue was calm and cooperative during the interview.
Police said he waived his right to an attorney and agreed to provide a DNA sample and access to his phone.
“I didn’t want the neighbors to see me get hauled out in cuffs,” he said regarding why he walked to a nearby bus stop to wait for police.
When asked why he just didn’t tell Kay the truth or ask for help, Atchue said, “Maybe we could’ve worked through it. Maybe. But I couldn’t face it.”
Police said Atchue had unusually few encounters with police, according to police records. He had one prior arrest in 2004 for a failure to appear warrant.
Police asked Atchue if Kay would have agreed with his plan, and he said, no.
“She might not agree with that, but it’s the way I seen it,” he said, according to police detectives.“I did what I did. Not proud of it, but I did it. I couldn’t leave her homeless and on the streets because of my f-ups.”