In a tragic incident in San Antonio, Texas, a mother and her young son were found deceased under circumstances that shook the community and underscored the devastating impact of domestic disputes. On March 19, the bodies of 32-year-old Savannah Kriger and her 3-year-old son Kaiden were discovered in a park, each with a gunshot wound to the head.
The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office later confirmed the deaths as a murder-suicide. This sorrowful discovery was the culmination of a series of distressing events that began to unfold the previous day. According to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, Savannah Kriger left her workplace on the afternoon of March 18 and engaged in a series of alarming activities.
Authorities believe that she visited her former marital home, which was unoccupied at the time as her ex-husband was at work. It was there that she reportedly fired two shots at her wedding portraits, an act Sheriff Javier Salazar described during a press briefing. Following this act of vandalism, Kriger picked up her son from daycare. Over the next few hours, she sent a barrage of disturbing messages and videos to her ex-husband via FaceTime and texts, told the New York Post.
In these communications, she ominously told him that he would have nothing left by the end of the day and explicitly instructed him to say goodbye to his son. One of the last texts she sent chillingly read, “Say goodbye to your son.” A critical piece of evidence in this case was a 21-second video found on Kriger’s phone, which was recovered from the scene. In the video, Savannah and Kaiden were seen sitting in a ditch within the park.
The footage showed a heartbreaking interaction where she instructed Kaiden to say goodbye to his father and apologized that his father could not be there, followed by her kissing him. It is reported that after recording this video, Kriger accessed children’s cartoons on her phone while still at the location.
Although the video itself did not capture the moment of the shootings, the implications were tragically clear. Sheriff Salazar pointed out that Kriger’s intentions, as evidenced by her actions and the subsequent findings, were unmistakable.
The bodies were discovered nearly a day later, 19 hours after an Amber Alert was issued and an extensive search was conducted. The timing of these events was particularly poignant as Kriger and her ex-husband were scheduled to appear in court for a custody hearing on the day the bodies were found. Earlier in the month, Kriger had initiated divorce proceedings and filed for a temporary restraining order against her ex-husband, signaling deep-rooted issues between the two.
This incident has highlighted the profound effects of custody disputes and domestic turmoil. As the community grapples with this tragedy, questions about the adequacy of support systems for those involved in custody and divorce disputes remain, underlining the need for more comprehensive approaches to addressing and mitigating domestic conflicts and their potentially catastrophic consequences.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.