Husband found wife dying in street after mass shooting

THE husband of one of the Plymouth mass shooter’s victims came across her dying in the street when he went out to look for her after she failed to return home, an inquest heard.

Kate Shepherd, 66, had been shot close to a hair salon on Henderson Place in Keyham, Plymouth, and was the final victim of Jake Davison’s 12-minute killing spree.

Plymouth, Torbay and South Devon Coroner’s court heard Mrs Shepherd’s husband John had become concerned for her when she did not return from her walk because their sons were due to visit with their new-born grandchildren. “I texted Kate three times and called her several times, but there was no answer,” he said in a statement read to the court by his eldest son George. “It was very out of character for Kate to not answer her phone and I found it alarming, so I took the car out to go and look for her. It was whilst looking that I came across the scene of the shooting. I could see a whole team of people from the emergency services working on someone, it was Kate.”

The court heard Mrs Shepherd, an artist, was taken to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth where she later died. In a tribute to her, the Shepherd family said: “Kate was a colourful sister, mother, wife, aunt, grandmother and friend.”

The couple had just celebrated their ruby wedding anniversary when she died, and had become grandparents for the first time a few weeks before.