‘I dreamt I shot my wife’ – the man who murdered while ‘sleepwalking’

Raymond Lazarine said he wasn’t awake when he fired six bullets…

Raymond Lazarine called his son Nathan while he was at work. He sounded out of sorts and panicked. It was around noon on December 18, 2013. ‘I’ve had a dream that I shot my wife…’ Lazarine stammered down the phone. ‘Then I woke up… come quick.’

Nathan thought he sounded strangely distressed about just a dream and rushed to his dad’s home in Houston, Texas. When Nathan got there and burst into the living room, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Lazarine’s wife, Deborah, was dead on the floor in a pool of blood. Her body was riddled with bullets. How had a dream become a horrific reality?

Lazarine and Deborah, 63, had been married for 35 years. Nathan was Lazarine’s son from a previous relationship. Deborah had two daughters, including Krysta Johns, now 46, who had grown up with Lazarine as her stepfather. Lazarine ran an electrical contracting business and Deborah was his loyal wife.

She loved the simple things in life, like being near water with days at the beach or rivers in the country, although she’d never learned how to swim. Deborah could be found keeping busy in her garden, or visiting her children’s gardens to help out with a spot of landscaping. She enjoyed crafting and there was always something delicious cooking in her oven.

Deborah was devoted to her children and her grandchildren, too – she had another due in just a few weeks. She knew Lazarine drank too much, especially as he was taking psychotropic medication for his mental health, which shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol.

Krysta would later say her mum had suffered silently from domestic abuse for years. She would say Lazarine didn’t like it when Deborah was on the phone to anyone and would keep her conversations short. Away from Lazarine, she behaved like a different person. She would be happy, bubbly and outgoing. No one