A retired San Francisco police sergeant shot and killed his estranged wife, a former deputy chief who was the city’s first woman to join and later lead its SWAT team, as well as their adult daughter, and then took his own life inside their Marin County home, officials said on Monday.
The Marin County Sheriff’s Office identified the victims as Kevin Mannix, 68; Ann Mannix, 65; and Katherine Mannix, 24, also known as Katie. The sheriff’s office stated that preliminary investigation revealed that Kevin Mannix shot his wife and daughter on Sunday evening, and then committed suicide at their Strawberry Circle residence in Strawberry, an unincorporated area near Mill Valley.
Multiple 911 calls reporting gunfire inside the house prompted the dispatch of deputies at 5:03 p.m. Sunday. They arrived quickly, directed the caller to safety, and upon securing the perimeter, found three dead bodies. Miguel Almaguer, the sheriff’s office spokesman, said there was no threat to the community.
The emergency dispatch audio recorded by the San Francisco Chronicle revealed that the caller who made the 911 call was inside the house when the shooting happened and escaped through a bedroom window. The caller identified Kevin Mannix as the shooter and informed the dispatcher that he had been drinking red wine, the newspaper added. The caller was uninjured. The sheriff’s office did not disclose the caller’s relationship to the family, while the media presented different versions.
A motive for the crime has not been established yet. The autopsies are scheduled for Tuesday.
Ann Mannix’s friends began revealing tension in their marriage. Marie Hurabiell, a San Francisco political activist who worked with Ann on a recent speaker series about the city’s search for a new police chief, told the Chronicle that Ann told her she and her husband were in the middle of a divorce. Hurabiell told The California Post that she saw Ann at a party about two weeks before the shooting and that Ann looked happy and optimistic about her future.
A childhood friend who had known Ann Mannix for more than six decades told The California Post that Ann had told her about some problems in her marriage. “We talked about her relationship with her husband. It wasn’t great,” the friend said, but she was not named in the report. She noted that, to her knowledge, the couple was not estranged. As a caring mother, Ann Mannix eagerly awaited becoming a grandmother.
Retired Captain Alexa O’Brien, who worked with both Ann and Kevin Mannix, told the publication that Kevin was a quiet, easy-going man who did not look violent.
The authorities told KTVU that deputies had never been sent to the address before Sunday. It is still unclear whether there had been any reports of domestic violence or restraining orders against the couple.
Ann Mannix joined the San Francisco Police Department in September 1986 as a member of its 163rd academy class and later served at Taraval, Northern, Park, and Southern stations. She was the first woman to join the department’s SWAT team and the first one to lead it. In 2018, she was promoted to deputy chief, supervising the Field Operations Bureau, and the following year to lead the Special Operations Bureau, which included SWAT and the bomb squad. She retired in 2021 as the department’s highest-ranking woman.
A fourth-generation San Franciscan, she grew up in the Jordan Park neighborhood, attended public schools in the Richmond District, played basketball, and earned a scholarship degree in political science at Loyola Marymount University. Off duty, she coached Catholic Youth Organization basketball, volunteered with the National Charity League and the San Francisco Police Activities League, and served on the Ignatian Guild at St. Ignatius College Preparatory. She had lived in Strawberry since 1989. Her brother is also a retired San Francisco police commander, according to The San Francisco Standard.
Kevin Mannix worked for 27 years at the department, mostly at Taraval Station in the Sunset District, before retiring in June 2018. He was working as an investigator for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office when the two married, the Chronicle reported.
Katie Mannix was a student at College of Marin. “We are deeply saddened by the loss of Katie Mannix,” said Nicole Cruz, the college’s communications director. A family friend described her as a fun and outgoing person who lit up any gathering.
The couple also had a daughter and a son.
Louis Wong, the president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, said that the deaths had “left our entire SFPD family reeling.” He praised Ann Mannix as a pioneer and urged officers to look after each other and check on retired colleagues who might be having trouble.
Police Chief Derrick Lew said that Ann Mannix “served with honor and distinction at the SFPD for over 30 years.” Mayor Daniel Lurie said that she was a pioneer who became a leader of two departments’ bureaus. Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who knew her, said he would consider additional actions the city could take to address behavioral health problems among emergency responders, including retired ones.
The deaths happened during Domestic Violence Awareness Month observed every October. The Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy organization, in its latest national study of murder-suicides, estimated that more than 1,000 people died in such cases in the U.S. in 2025. The statistics revealed that in 65% of the cases, the killer murdered his intimate partner, 87% of the murders were committed with a gun, and 80% of the killings took place in the home.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to get help from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Anybody experiencing domestic violence can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1.800.799.7233 or by texting START to 88788. Current and retired officers can call Copline, a confidential hotline staffed by retired law enforcement officers, at 1.800.267.5463.
