PLANTATION, Fla. – Newly obtained crime scene photographs and a police interrogation video provide a glimpse inside the life of the man accused of fatally shooting his fiancée with an AK-47 assault rifle.
Police said Royce Teets shot Terri Coolidge once in the chest with a short-barreled AK-47 inside the couple's Plantation home last July.
"She's going to die," Teets told a 911 dispatcher in the moments after the shooting.
Crime scene photos obtained Tuesday by Local 10 News show blood on the walls and floors, a bullet hole in the wall and the gun used in the fatal shooting.
Police said Teets initially claimed that he was cleaning the gun when it accidentally discharged.
According to a police report, Teets claimed his fiancée was an alcoholic who had gotten mad at him earlier in the day for texting to and speaking with other women.
Police said Teets left to go drinking with friends and returned home to an irate Coolidge. He claimed that Coolidge broke a mirror in their bedroom and told him, "I'm going to kill you."
"She was extremely drunk," Teets said in the interrogation video.
According to the report, Teets went to the bedroom closet where he keeps two AK-47s and grabbed one of them before Coolidge could take it. Teets said he removed the magazine from the gun and believed that it was empty. He said the argument moved from the bedroom to the living room, where Coolidge was shot.
Police said Teets, who is a convicted felon, gave three different versions of how his fiancée ended up dead.
"Who got the gun out of the closet?" a detective who was questioning Teets asked.
"When she was running to get it, I ran back there and got it first," Teets said.
Teets said the first thing he did after finding the gun was to remove the magazine and throw it on the bed. However, when police found the gun, they found a live round in the chamber.
The interrogation lasted more than three hours. Teets shows a range of emotion in the video, at one point slamming his hand on the table and at another time getting on his knees to pray.
"Why did you have to die?" Teets said.
Teets eventually confessed to the shooting, admitting that he lied to police.
"How many times have you lied to me today?" the detective asked Teets.
"I was scared," Teets answered.
"How many times have you lied to me today?" the detective said. "Just tell me. 10? 20?"
"A few," Teets said.
Teets is charged with first-degree murder and remains in jail without bond.