Florida Mom Dies Protecting Children After Husband Rages over NFL Game

A Florida mom has been hailed a hero after she died protecting her children as her husband snapped into a raging fit over an NFL game.

The tragic incident occurred just a few days before Christmas this past December, per USA Today, when Polk County resident Jason Kenney went on a rampage during a game of Monday Night Football, shooting his 13-year-old step-daughter in the head and killing his wife, Crystal Roure.

Crystal married Kenney, whom she met at church, in 2023 after many years as a single mother, and the two seemed to have a loving marriage, according to Crystal’s sister, Stephanie Roure. In fact, Crystal waited a whole year to introduce Kenney to her children after the two started dating.

“She took her time,” Crystal’s sister told USA Today. “She did have a happy glow that I haven’t seen in a long time … My sister trusted him and fell in love with him. She finally found her happy ever after.”

Stephanie said that Crystal dedicated her life to her children after becoming a mother at age 25.

“She worked harder and longer,” Stephanie said. “And somehow she was superwoman. She managed to hold down a full-time job and being a full-time mother.”

“Her children were her world. She worked hard for them to provide for them. She protected them,” Stephanie added. “They came first before anything.”

Though Stephanie never quite warmed to Kenney, she noticed her sister had a glow while dating him, a glow that seemed to vanish after the two tied the knot in 2023. When Stephanie inquired if her sister had a problem, Crystal said that her getting pregnant fairly quickly after the wedding likely caused some complications.

“I remember asking her, ‘Are you OK?'” Stephanie said. “She said, ‘Yes,’ it’s just this pregnancy was really kicking her butt because she was much older.”

On December 22, 2025, just three days before Christmas, the picture-perfect family image that Kenney and his wife projected shattered into pieces when Stephanie learned that her sister had been killed.

“Crystal and her three kids spent the evening of Dec. 22 by the Christmas tree at their home in Highland City, just east of Tampa. Meanwhile, Kenney was in his shed, drinking and watching Monday Night Football until about 11 p.m., Sheriff Judd said,” noted USA Today.

“When Kenney went inside the home and wanted to continue watching the game, a fight ensued. It became so scary that Crystal told her 12-year-old son to run to a neighbor’s house and call 911, Judd said,” it added.

Crystal’s son recalled hearing the first gunshot as he ran from the house, with deputies later finding Crystal dead inside; her 13-year-old daughter survived despite being shot in the face and shoulder. The couple’s one-year-old daughter sustained no injuries. Authorities later discovered a note written by Crystal with a message to Kenney that read, “You’re drinking, you’re using cocaine again. This is not the way the family should be. You need God.”

Kenney later drove to his father’s property and committed suicide inside his father’s shed with a single shot to the head.

“After they were married, I know she said he was drinking a lot more, but she said that he was going to stop and said he would get help with it. Obviously, that didn’t happen,” Stephanie said, noting how Kenney would often “sit outside in the shed playing games on his phone and smoking his cigarettes” whenever she came to visit.

“If there was abuse happening, he must have scared her to the point not to say or do anything because the type of person my sister was, she would have left at the first sight of trouble because she would protect her kids,” she said. “But that’s a question we’ll never have answers to.”

“I will never let these kids forget the love and strength and courage she had for them,” she added. “They will always know that she loved them and put them first.”

 

Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and can be viewed for FREE on YouTube, Tubi, or Fawesome TV. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, or YouTube Movies. Follow him on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.