Motive for Perry County shooting 'anybody's guess,' sheriff says

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Figuring out what happened Monday when John A. Shuffit turned his rifle on his estranged wife, Stephanie L. Shuffit, before killing himself wasn't too difficult, Perry County Sheriff Gary Schaaf said Tuesday.

Stephanie Shuffit (photo provided)

It is the why that puzzles him.

"We pretty much know what happened," Schaaf said. "Why it happened is anybody's guess."

John Shuffit (photo provided)

The Shuffits clearly had a troubled marriage. John Shuffit, 53, filed a court action in January 2008 in Scott County to end their marriage. That case was dismissed in February of this year. They lived apart, he at 706 W. Second St. in Scott City, she with children from an earlier marriage in an aging mobile home at 149 Rocky Lane in rural Perry County.

At about 7:15 p.m. Monday, John Shuffit pulled into the driveway of that mobile home, which was surrounded by children's toys scattered in the yard, and had a brief conversation with Stephanie Shuffit, 34, before shooting her once in the chest, killing her. He then drove about 10 miles, past Silver Lake, Mo., and onto a rural gravel road before taking his own life.

Because the shooter killed himself, Schaaf said, the investigation is at an end.

John Shuffit's brother, Michael Shuffit of Scott City, said he could not explain the events. He had not spoken with his brother in several months, he said, and last saw him only in passing while shopping in Cape Girardeau. But keeping to himself wasn't out of character for his brother, Michael Shuffit said.

"He never did come around and talk about things," he said.

The shooting of Stephanie Shuffit was similar to another tragedy in her life. In March 1996, Stephanie Shuffit, who was then known as Stephanie Ray, saw her live-in boyfriend, Michael Sanders, shot down by ex-boyfriend Russell Bucklew in front of her son. Bucklew pistol-whipped Stephanie, handcuffed her, dragged her to a car and drove north on Interstate 55.

Bucklew raped Stephanie during the drive and was captured following a shootout with the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Before his trial, Bucklew escaped from the Cape Girardeau County Jail and assaulted Stephanie's mother, Barbara Pruitt, and boyfriend Ed Frenzel in her home with a knife and hammer.

Bucklew had called her from jail and told her "I'm going to get you next," Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said Tuesday.

Bucklew had been Stephanie's boyfriend until they broke up about five weeks before he shot Sanders. At the time of the shooting, Bucklew was facing multiple charges of burglary, assault, unlawful use of a weapon and false imprisonment for attacks on Stephanie. Bucklew is on death row awaiting execution.

The news of Shuffit's death caused Swingle to think back to the case and the fact that Bucklew remains alive, although his avenues for appeal are closing. Swingle expects Bucklew to be among the next half-dozen executions.

"I feel sick about it because she was a beautiful young woman, and it is just tragic to see she has had such bad luck with men," Swingle said.

When the jury returned a death penalty verdict on Bucklew, Stephanie told the Southeast Missourian that the punishment was just.

"He went out like a coward," she said after Bucklew was sentenced to death. "He said he never wanted anything like this to happen, not ever."

She said that while it was happening Bucklew didn't care what he did to people or who he hurt.

"Now he's getting just what he deserves," she said.

Swingle said his heart goes out to the three children who were present when John Shuffit shot Stephanie. Two of those children, he said, may have also been present when Bucklew invaded the Pyrite Lane home.

Stephanie Shuffit's 10-year-old son made the emergency call Monday, telling dispatchers his mother had been shot by his father, Schaaf said.

Stephanie had recently contacted the crime victim advocate in Swingle's office because of problems she was having with John Shuffit, Swingle said. "She said she was going through a divorce with her current husband and he had allegedly forged her name on a stimulus check."

Charles Ray, Stephanie Shuffit's ex-husband and father of two of her children, said they had been speaking regularly, working out a plan for visitation with the children and talking about a reconciliation.

Reached by telephone in west Tennessee, Ray recalled how he and Stephanie had married in January 1992, just as he was being released from the Marine Corps. They divorced in 1995, before she became involved with Bucklew.

"I guess we just married too young," Ray said.

But in recent months, they were finding out that they could get along, he said.

"We were planning on putting another go at it," he said. "We started talking three, four, five months ago. We were having very good relations and talking with each other."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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Pertinent addresses:

149 Rocky Lane, Perryville, MO

706 W. Second St., Scott City, MO