Warrants: Murder suspect recorded video as he shot his child's aunt
When Dorian Thomas called 911 to report that a woman had been shot on his doorstep, he told operators that he "got it on video," according to search warrants in the case.
Thomas is charged with the March 17 murder of Emily Christine Steinhoff, 44, who had accompanied her sister to Thomas' home for a custody exchange. Steinhoff and her sister, Hillary Lombardi, had gone together to pick up Lombardi's 14-month-old daughter from the child's father, where she had spent the weekend.
Lombardi told investigators that she saw Thomas recording video through a window as she and Steinhoff knocked on his door. She said Thomas at first refused to open the door to their knock. The warrants say "after period of time of knocking on the door, Dorian Thomas opened the door and firearm was discharged by Dorian, striking the victim while she was standing on the porch. It was reported that after the firearm was discharged by Dorian, he went back into the residence and secured the firearm at an unknown location inside of the residence."
It was Thomas who called 911 to report that Steinhoff had been shot.
Steinhoff, friends told WRAL News, was an Army veteran, a lawyer, a regular volunteer at Raleigh Little Theatre and the mother of a young son, Miles.
Neighbors told WRAL News that Thomas, 50, had only lived at the home for about a year.
He is being held at at the Johnston County Detention center without bond.
A GoFundMe has been started to help support Steinhoff's family.
