by DAVID HAMILTON

NATCHEZ — A Natchez native is dead after allegedly being shot in the head by her husband, who was later also found dead in Durango, Colorado, after apparently committing suicide.

Wilkinson County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Lemuel Rutledge Sr. said friends of Khristie Rollins Shoats, 45, called the sheriff’s office approximately 2:30 p.m. Sunday concerned about her welfare.

Deputies also received a call, Rutledge said, from an assistant fire chief from the Zachary, La., Fire Department expressing a welfare concern for Shoats’ husband, Rudolf Shoats, 48, who was a fire captain for both the Zachary and West Feliciana Parish fire departments.

Rutledge said Khristie Shoats’ body was discovered later that day in the passenger seat of a vehicle parked on the side of Carter Loop Road. She had suffered an apparent gunshot wound to the head.

After the discovery, investigators attempted to locate Rudolf Shoats.

“We did not know (at the time) if he was a suspect or a victim also,” Rutledge said.

Investigators then tracked Rudolf Shoats’ cell phone usage and social media activity to attempt to determine his whereabouts, but they never came into contact with Shoats throughout the investigation, Rutledge said.

The Wilkinson County Sheriff’s Office then issued a nationwide alert to other law enforcement agencies to find Rudolf Shoats, wanted for questioning related to the apparent murder.

Rutledge said the sheriff’s office received a call Monday from law enforcement officials in Durango who said that Rudolf Shoats had been found dead in his white 2008 Ford pickup truck from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Rudolf Shoats had pulled into a hospital parking lot in Durango — more than 1,200 miles from Woodville — when hospital employees heard a gunshot. Rutledge said Shoats’ truck then rolled off a retaining wall and overturned.

Rutledge said no weapon had been recovered.

Friends of Khristie Shoats told investigators that she and her husband had attended a party Saturday — the night before the alleged murder — where the two “had some words” before leaving the party, Rutledge said.

Though Rutledge said the family did not mention any sort of violent history in the couple’s relationship, Khristie Shoats’ ex-husband, Roy Allen Nugent, told The (Baton Rouge) Advocate newspaper his ex-wife had mentioned that Rudolf Shoats had “anger issues,” and was “a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of person.”