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A retired San Francisco police sergeant who gunned down his wife and daughter before turning the gun on himself was in the throes of a bizarre late-life makeover — as a a family friend said he had “a monster inside him.”
Kevin Mannix, 68, had reportedly been hitting the gym, shedding pounds and overhauling his appearance as his marriage to former San Francisco Deputy Police Chief Ann Mannix, 65, crumbled.
“He had wanted to chase youth,” Mary Conde, a longtime close friend of Ann, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It seems like he was on a campaign to revamp his appearance.”
Conde described the former police sergeant as being in the middle of a late “midlife crisis” as the couple headed toward divorce.
But the most chilling revelation came when Conde described the darkness she now believes was lurking beneath Kevin’s seemingly ordinary exterior.
“Kevin had a monster inside of him that he was able to suppress for all of his lifetime until Sunday, and that monster came out in the most horrific possible way,” Conde told the Chronicle “And nobody suspected that that was ever a possibility.”
The disturbing comments come after investigators said Kevin fatally shot his wife and their 24-year-old daughter, Katie, inside the family’s home in the affluent Marin County community of Strawberry, east of Mill Valley, on Sunday evening.
He then apparently turned the gun on himself, authorities said.
At least one person managed to escape the house and call 911 as the horror unfolded. The caller reported that Kevin had been drinking red wine, according to investigators.
Authorities have not publicly identified a motive for the suspected double murder-suicide.
Conde, a local entertainment executive who had known Ann for decades, said the shocking violence blindsided those closest to the family.
Still, she admitted that after processing the horrific news, she couldn’t completely dismiss the possibility that Kevin was capable of such brutality.
“I didn’t clutch my pearls and say, ‘Kevin? No way,’” she told the Chronicle.
Meanwhile, newly uncovered records reveal Kevin was still working part-time for the San Francisco Police Department despite retiring from the force in 2018 after 27 years of service.
He had apparently been helping investigate prospective police recruits in the department’s staff services division before being abruptly reassigned to the property division on Sept. 1.
The transfer was made at the request of the deputy chief of administration, although the reason behind the move remains unclear.
Department officials declined to comment on the reassignment, according to the Chronicle.
Ann, who had also returned to the department as a part-time employee following her retirement, was a celebrated trailblazer who became the first woman to serve on San Francisco’s SWAT team and eventually command the elite unit.
She later rose to deputy chief, overseeing the department’s Field Operations and Special Operations bureaus. Her brutal death, along with that of her young daughter, has devastated former colleagues and loved ones.
One close friend, who said she had known Ann for decades, previously told thr California Post: “This is so sad for me. She was my best friend of 60 years. Love her, she didn’t deserve this.”
The San Francisco Police Officers Association described the suspected murder-suicide as a “horrific and senseless” tragedy that left the department reeling.
“There are no words that can fully capture the depth of this tragedy, nor are there simple answers to the painful questions we are all asking,” the association said.