Jay Juarez was getting ready to meet up with a former coworker on the morning of Thursday, July 25, when all of a sudden, gunshots rang out. It was the first time Juarez had ever heard gunshots from her Vancouver apartment, located in a calm residential area blocks away from a police department and a community center.
Seconds later, a little girl let out a chilling scream, Juarez said. Rushing down to the parking lot outside her apartment complex, Juarez came across a troubling sight: a man and woman lying on the ground, covered in blood.
Carissa Larkin, 32, and Kyle Palmer, 38 — both of Vancouver — died that morning in what Vancouver police described as a homicide-suicide.
Around 8:10 a.m., officers responded to reports of gunshots and a man holding a gun in the 4300 block of Plomondon Street. By the time they arrived, Larkin and Palmer were dead.
Larkin died from multiple gunshot wounds across her body. Palmer died by suicide, according to the Clark County medical examiner. Soon after the incident, police reported the shooter was one of the people that died.
Hours after the shooting, as first responders closed off the lot and examined the bodies, the young girl’s terrified voice continued echoing in Juarez’s head.
“No child should have to scream like that,” she said.
Larkin had two daughters, 13 and 11, and a son, 4, according to a GoFundMe set up to support her children. She worked as a private caregiver, said Larkin’s close friend Amie Emery.
She was taking her son to preschool the morning of the shooting when Palmer, her former fiancé, showed up outside her apartment, Emery said.
In the torrent of gunfire that followed, Larkin’s son’s hand was grazed by a bullet and he had to be rushed to the hospital, she said.
Earlier this year, Larkin filed for a protection order against Palmer, Clark County court records show.
Larkin sought the order to protect her children from alleged sexual assault while police investigated reports of abuse, according to the petition filed in March.
Her children had told her earlier that month that Palmer had been “touching them inappropriately” for the past two years, Larkin wrote in the petition.
“They were afraid to say anything because he ‘loved them,’” she wrote.
She also indicated in the document that Palmer possessed firearms and requested a temporary order that would require him to give up his dangerous weapons.
“I am unsure of what Kyle is capable of but fear retaliation to being served,” she wrote.
A month later, Emery served the protection order to Palmer, according to court records.
The next time Larkin saw Palmer, it was the morning of July 25, as he pulled out a gun and shot his former fiancée while she held their son, Emery said.
Emery now holds onto memories of her close friend. She recalls talking to Larkin on the phone the Sunday before she died, as Larkin refurbished her daughters’ bedroom.
Emery likes to remember her that way, laughing, joking and being a devoted mom. Larkin was someone who always focused on the positive, no matter how tough life got, Emery said.
“She was one of the most amazing humans that I ever knew,” she said.
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