On the afternoon of October 10, 2016, Elizabeth Diane Coleman, 58, answered the front door of her rural Sunizona-area home near Pearce, Arizona, and was fatally shot at the threshold. Her husband, Sam, who had been in a bedroom, was also seriously wounded after the attacker advanced into the house and fired additional shots. Sam survived after emergency surgery and later told detectives the neighbor, Jesse Lee Steel, had come to collect kittens the Colemans had promised him and immediately began shooting.

An autopsy found Elizabeth had been shot twice in the head; one close-range entry beneath the nose passed through the mouth and tongue, and a second entry in the rear of the head was recovered. Deputies and Border Patrol agents located and arrested Steel about an hour later at a residence roughly eleven miles away. He was charged by grand jury indictment with first-degree murder, first-degree attempted murder and multiple aggravated assault counts; reporting indicates prosecutors chose not to seek the death penalty.

Investigators recovered a replica 1858 revolver about a mile and a half from the scene, and records show a Jesse L. Steel later entered the Arizona Department of Corrections on a 30-year term for aggravated assault. No clear motive has been publicly documented. If anyone knew Elizabeth or has information about the shooting, please share what could help the case.