Avon Lake police: Husband killed wife, sons, dog in suspected murder-suicide

AVON LAKE — Police investigating a suspected murder-suicide in Avon Lake believe the husband was most likely the gunman. The incident Tuesday resulted in the deaths of four members of a family in their home on English Turn in the Legacy Pointe neighborhood. Avon Lake Police Lt. Sean Bockelman wrote in an email Thursday that police "strongly suspect" the husband, previously identified as Jeffrey Hull, 50, fatally shot his wife Heidi Hull, 46, and sons Garrett Hull, 9, and Grant Hull, 6, before shooting himself. "We cannot confirm this 100 percent until we have concluded processing all of the evidence and received the coroner's report," Bockelman wrote. Jeffrey Hull also is suspected of shooting the family's dog, according to police. Patrol officers were initially dispatched to the residence for a welfare check at 1:18 p.m. Tuesday, but they called for detectives after observing a suspicious condition inside the home. A Maine native, Heidi Hull went to State University of New York at Purchase from 1996 to 1999, according to her public LinkedIn profile. She worked for FM Global, a commercial property insurer, in various roles for more than 20 years, rising from a temporary underwriter to operations senior vice president/operations manager in Cleveland after seven promotions within the company. Heidi Hull was one of the company's top 50 executives and the first woman to be promoted to senior vice president/operations manager in the 185-year history of the company, FM Global said in a news release in December 2020. She oversaw operations in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and parts of Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania, according to FM Global. Also in December 2020, FM Global announced that Business Insurance magazine had named Heidi Hull a "2020 Woman to Watch," an award recognizing "female leaders in the insurance sector" for "their accomplishments, expertise, leadership and future prospects." It is "the only recognition program that celebrates leading women from every facet of the commercial insurance industry including risk management and related fields," FM Global said at the time. Heidi Hull told the magazine she chose insurance "because she believed in the partnership proposal touted by FM Global and other insurers: 'That sense of purpose, how a company like FM Global can really help a local economy by helping a business which supports a town — those towns that you hear of where it's the mill that keeps the town alive.' That sense of purpose "really spoke to me, having grown up in a very small town in Maine," she told the magazine. A message seeking further comment was left with an FM Global spokesperson.