Melissa Patrick

One Dead, Two Targeted in DeKalb Rampage

Auburn woman slain, Waterloo couple's home damaged by automobile.

By Aaron Organ
January 2, 2010

DeKalb County police are unraveling what appears to be a “love rectangle” that left an Auburn woman dead Friday after her boyfriend – a city man – went on an “intent-to-kill” rampage that targeted two others.

Police involvement began midday Friday, when DeKalb County and Waterloo police were called to a home on the south side of Waterloo just after noon. There, police found a Jeep Patriot crashed inside the home's foyer, a man inside the vehicle suffering from gunshot wounds to the leg and six children and a couple waiting for police outside.

The man in the vehicle – Ronnie R. Jones, 39, of Fort Wayne – immediately surrendered to police, and told officers he had just killed his girlfriend in her Auburn home and came to the Waterloo home of his estranged wife and her boyfriend with the intent to do the same to them, according to a release from the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department.

Auburn police then went to the home of Jones' girlfriend, 32-year-old Melissa Patrick, where officers found the woman dead of gunshot wounds.

Back in Waterloo, police attempting to decipher the incident discovered that Jones, after allegedly killing Patrick in Auburn, drove to the home of Sara Grimm and Jason Patrick – Melissa Patrick's estranged husband. Once there, Jones parked his vehicle, walked to the door of the home and rang the doorbell. When he received no answer, witnesses said Jones opened fire into the home's front door from a semiautomatic handgun, police said.

From inside, Patrick returned fire unto Jones with a 20-gauge shotgun, striking Jones in the leg at least once, police said.

Jones then retreated to his SUV, and as Patrick fired another round, witnesses told police he drove the vehicle through the home's front door.

As Patrick, Grimm and six children exited the home, Jones ran off to a neighboring property, where Waterloo police arrested him.

Patrick suffered a minor cut on the hand in the chaos; Grimm and the couple's children were uninjured.

Jones was taken to Parkview Hospital, where he was treated for the gunshot wound to his leg and released into police custody.

He is being held in the DeKalb County Jail on a preliminary charge of murder.

Police investigators learned Melissa and Jason Patrick were going through a divorce, as were Grimm and Jones, the release said.

Jason Patrick and Grimm each had protective orders filed against Jones out of DeKalb County, and Jones had similar documents filed against Grimm out of DeKalb and Allen Counties and against Jason Patrick out of DeKalb County.

Police do not have a motive.

“We don't know what fueled it or what the relationship between Jones or Patrick was,” said Sgt. Ron Galaviz of the Indiana State Police. “I don't have any gauge on what that was.”

The case remains an open investigation by the Indiana State Police, Waterloo Police, Auburn Police and DeKalb County Sheriff Departments along with the DeKalb County Prosecutor's and Coroner's Offices.