Grand Rapid Press
Copyright 2008 Grand Rapids Press
SPENCER TOWNSHIP, Mich. — As a veteran police dispatcher, Tracy Larson found herself on the other side of a traumatic 911 call.
Larson, who police say was shot in the abdomen and beaten by her longtime boyfriend, lay in the living room of her mobile home Tuesday night and relayed information to emergency dispatchers about her attacker as she lost consciousness.
“I don’t want to die,” she said, her voice weakening, urging rescuers to hurry because she wanted to live for her two teen-age daughters.
Larson’s boyfriend, 50-year-old Joseph Eugene Simones, fatally shot himself in another room, police said. Authorities say the domestic dispute morphed into the attempted murder-suicide after Larson, 41, apparently attempted to break off her 10-year relationship with Simones. She was in critical condition at Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital.
Fellow dispatchers were amazed at how much information Larson — who handles 911 calls in Montcalm County — was able to give them.
“I was very surprised that she was able to give us the amount of information that she did, given that she was shot in the stomach,” Kent County sheriff’s dispatcher Heather Bishop said Wednesday. Bishop relayed updates from her supervisor, who was on the phone with Larson, to deputies arriving on the scene.
Bishop said Larson correctly relayed her and Simones’ locations, which aided deputies in approaching the home.
Deputies moving in to help Larson wanted her to call out to them, if she was able.
“I had to tell the deputies that she could barely talk,” Bishop said.
Larson called the police at 8:11 p.m., saying Simones had turned a shotgun on her at point-blank range and then beat her with the gun’s stock.
Her voice can be heard faintly pleading for help on the 911 tape, telling dispatchers she did not want to die, that Simones had locked himself in the bedroom, and she had heard another gunshot.
With Simones’ condition in the bedroom unknown, and tactical units a ways off, deputies Mike Hopkins and Mario Morey decided to get Larson out of the home.
They brought her around to the side of the house, where another officer had pulled up a cruiser, then drove her to a waiting ambulance.
“They made a decision to go in and try to rescue her and save her life, which they did,” said Kent County Sheriff’s Capt. Mark Fletcher, head of the detective bureau.
Using a state police bomb squad robot, authorities confirmed Simones was dead about 11:15 p.m.
“It’s safe to say, more than likely soon after he shot her, he went directly into the bedroom and shot himself,” Fletcher said.
Family and friends stayed by Larson’s side in the hospital, waiting for any updates on her condition, said her boss, Jeff Troyer, director of the Montcalm County Central Dispatch.
He described Larson as an “exemplary employee.” She was a dispatcher in Greenville and Ionia before working for Montcalm Central Dispatch.
In 1999 in Ionia, she talked an 11-year-old boy through delivering his baby sister, instructing him to get towels, blankets and shoe string.
In 2004, Larson received a statewide Honorable Mention award for Dispatcher of the Year from the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials.
She was honored by the United Way in June 2005 as Montcalm County Volunteer of the Month for her work with Big Brothers Big Sisters.
“This is a shock to hear that Joe shot her, because she talked about him like he was her life,” said Tonija Mikula, a volunteer services assistant who went to school with Larson and wrote an article about her volunteer work for United Way. “He was everything to her — very important.”
Larson and Simones lived together for 10 years, the last five at the house at 13083 19 Mile Road in Spencer Township. Police said there had been no previous 911 calls to the home.
Larson’s daughters were not home when the shooting occurred but did arrive later and were prevented from entering by deputies.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.