SAN ANTONIO (Texas News Radio) — Montgomery County officials provided more details Thursday about their investigation into the woman seen on doorbell video and the related suicide.
The sheriff’s office said deputies were sent to a home on Sunrise Pines in Montgomery at around 11 a.m. Wednesday for a welfare check.
Deputies met a woman at the location who said she had received a concerning text message from her ex-husband and she worried he may have hurt himself. She also believed his girlfriend was the woman on the doorbell videos getting national attention.
The sheriff’s office tried contacting 49-year-old Dennis Collins by phone and knocking, but when that yielded no results, they forced their way in.
Inside, they found Collins dead in bed with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Text messages from Collins explained what had happened, admitting to the sexual assault.
Detectives were able to locate the girlfriend in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and made contact with her through family members.
Texas Rangers were able to confirm her identity and she was able to provide information that only the woman in the video could have known.
The sheriff’s office says the couple had only lived in the house for four months or so and most of the neighbors did not know the couple all that well.
A spokesman says the investigation is still ongoing.