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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Texas Shooting Suspect Surrenders to Police

A former sheriff’s detective is accused of fatally shooting his estranged wife, his daughter and a high school student.

AUSTIN (CN) —  A 41-year-old man suspected of fatally shooting three people in Austin, Texas, on Sunday surrendered without incident to police who found him walking alongside a highway Monday morning.

Stephen Nicholas Broderick, a former Travis County sheriff’s detective, was taken into custody after authorities received two 911 calls around 7:30 a.m. about a man walking near U.S. 290 just outside the northwest Austin suburb of Manor.

Authorities said he had a pistol tucked into the waistband of his pants, but surrendered peaceably to officers from the Travis County Sheriff’s Department and Manor Police Department.

The callers may have recognized Broderick from photos police released of him Sunday after two women and a Black man were found shot dead near a north Austin apartment complex.

Austin Police Department SWAT team officers, FBI agents, emergency responders and two police helicopters converged on the area Sunday after someone called 91.

With police initially unable to locate Broderick, they issued a shelter-in-place order for area residents. Interim Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon told reporters on the scene Broderick was considered armed and dangerous, and he was concerned Broderick might try to take a hostage and was holed up nearby waiting for police to leave.

Chacon described Broderick, a Black man, as 5 feet 7 inches tall with a medium build.

The chief said the shootings arose over a domestic dispute and Broderick knew the victims but didn’t go into any possible motives.

The victims have been identified as Broderick’s estranged wife Amanda Broderick, their daughter Alyssa Broderick and Willie Simmons III.

According to the Elgin Independent School District, Alyssa Broderick attended its schools from 2009 to 2020 and was “an excellent student and athlete” who played basketball for Elgin High School.

“Willie was a senior at Elgin High School. … Strong, both academically and athletically, he represented the very best of Elgin ISD. He was the Captain of our football team; a friend to everyone he met; and most recently, recruited to play football for the University of North Texas,” Elgin ISD Superintendent Dr. Jodi Duron said in a statement.

The district said Alyssa Broderick had withdrawn from Elgin High School last fall.

The Travis County Sheriff’s Office placed Stephen Broderick on administrative leave last June after he was arrested on felony charges that he had sexually assaulted a 16-year-old female relative, the Austin American-Statesman reported at the time.

In an application for a protective order after Broderick's arrest, his wife Amanda Broderick said she worried about her safety and that of their children, USA Today reported.

"I'm afraid he will try to hurt me or my children, because these allegations have come out and he may lose his career," she stated. "Stephen has prior military experience and is SWAT trained. If he wanted to hurt someone, he would know how."

Amanda Broderick reportedly filed for divorce after his arrest on the sexual assault charges.

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Categories / Criminal, Regional

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