On December 9, 2022, 32-year-old Shawnda Nicole Wood, a mother of three, was found dead in her Waldorf, Maryland, home with a single gunshot wound to the back of her head. The discovery followed a welfare check requested at the Charles County Sheriff’s Office by her husband, Travis Edward Paschal Wood, who went to the station with his cousin and told an investigator he had been suicidal the previous night and asked for a lawyer.

Officers entering the unlocked Tawny Drive home found Shawnda in the couple’s bed and a silver and black handgun on the bed. The firearm was later identified as registered to Travis Wood and bearing his DNA. Investigators allege the couple had returned home around 2 a.m. after dinner, shopping and a visit to a hookah lounge; an argument reportedly followed after Shawnda confronted her husband about urinating on the floor. Authorities say Travis retrieved the firearm while his wife slept, shot her, then the next morning woke their daughters, took them to his mother’s house and later went to the sheriff’s office.

Travis Wood was arrested the day Shawnda’s body was discovered and charged with first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault, and a firearms violation; he was held without bond. Does anyone have information about Shawnda’s last evening or the family’s movements that could help explain what happened?