LAKE MARY, Fla.,None — WFTV found a possible motive for Thursday's murders in the Lake Mary area and it has to do with child support. John Marshall killed his ex-wife, her husband, and himself in a Lake Mary area neighborhood.
WFTV learned Marshall owed more than $200,000 in child support. So, to make up the difference, the judge took something away from Marshall and gave it to his ex-wife. What the judge gave her made her a millionaire.
Court documents related to the victim's 1997 divorce from the shooter describe big money and judgments related to properties in London. It may shed light on why Marshall started shooting through his ex-wife's front door Thursday morning.
The family home remained an active scene some 33 hours after Marshall murdered his ex-wife and her current husband on the sidewalks of a Lake Mary area subdivision.
"I got gunshots being fired outside the house," a caller told the 911 dispatcher.
Now, WFTV uncovered more recent signs of stress between Marshall and his ex, Dale Burkhart, even though they'd been divorced 12 years.
Court documents from 2005 show Marshall was nearly $201,000 behind on his child support payments, so a judge gave all the former husband's interest in a London rental property to the former wife. The document read: "All of the former husband's interest in the party's real property located in London, England is hereby awarded to the former wife."
Documents then show that property was sold in June 2007 for $1.1 million. All that cash went straight to Dale Burkhart.
Investigators acknowledge they are investigating finances as a possible motive and say there was trouble even when the two were married. Burkhart wrote, "My husband became very upset with our son and hit, slapped, and kicked him. When I intervened, he slapped me cross the face three times."
Burkhart also accused Marshall of trying to lure the family to his native Kenya, so he could abandon them.
WFTV stopped by Marshall's last known address. The Lake Mary home is a gathering spot for the area's Muslim community, of which Marshall was a well-known part of, but the residents said he hasn't lived there in at least four years.
Documents show Marshall was supposed to pay more than $2,000 a month in child support for the couple's five kids, but fell behind almost immediately after the divorce. Part of the problem was that he was such a drifter that no one could ever nail down where the payments should have been coming from.
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