Inset: Jennifer Mulligan (Virginia Beach Police Dept.). Background: The block in Virginia where Mulligan allegedly killed her father in May (Google Maps).
A woman, aged 44, from Virginia, has been charged with murdering her 90-year-old father, reportedly shooting him in the head and subsequently calling 911 to confess, stating she did it “on purpose.” Jennifer Mulligan faces first-degree murder and firearm charges in connection with the death of Woodward McClure earlier this year.
A news release from the Virginia Beach Police Department details that officers responded at approximately 11:11 a.m. on May 7 to a 911 call reporting a shooting at a residence in the 500 block of Rodney Lane, located roughly 100 miles southeast of Richmond. Upon their arrival, first responders found an adult male, later identified as McClure, with a gunshot wound to the head inside the home. He was declared deceased at the scene by emergency medical personnel.
“A female resident, later identified as Jennifer Mulligan of Virginia Beach, was taken into custody without incident,” the release states. “Preliminary investigation indicates this was a domestic-related incident.”
Further details about the fatal shooting emerged during a preliminary hearing on Tuesday in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, where prosecutors presented a recording of Mulligan’s 911 call.
When the dispatcher inquired why she was calling, Mulligan replied, “I just shot my dad,” as per a report from The Virginian-Pilot. When asked if the shooting was accidental, Mulligan reportedly answered, “It was on purpose.”
As the eight-minute conversation continued, Mulligan accused her father of being a “child predator” and a rapist, and made other accusations, telling the dispatcher he “is not a good person.”
One of the officers from the scene also testified that McClure was “obviously deceased” by the time authorities arrived, with a subsequent autopsy revealing that the gun was pressed against his forehead when he was shot.
In an interview with detectives, Mulligan accused her father of physically and emotionally abusing her and her siblings from a young age. That abuse allegedly continued about two years ago, when the Texas nursing home where he had been living closed and he moved in with Mulligan.
“I did what I had to do to take care of the agony,” she told one of the detectives, per a report from Portsmouth NBC affiliate WAVY.
Mulligan’s defense attorney, Roger Whitus, on Tuesday said the past abuse Mulligan suffered, which her family members reportedly corroborated, would be among the “significant mitigating and contrary evidence” to explain her apparent confessions.
“As we talked about in court, there were issues with just general day-to-day interactions with him, mostly just the way he would treat her and her family and their dogs and other people that they dealt with,” Whitus said after the hearing, according to a report from Norfolk CBS affiliate WTKR. “Issues with cleanliness, and then, like I said, I suspect at the end of the day, some of the long-standing issues involving abuse that were alluded to in court, were coming up to the surface.”
Mulligan is currently being held without bond. It was not immediately clear when she is scheduled to appear in court again.
