Columbia murder-suicide: Maury County Sheriff's Department closes case on family's shooting deaths in October
MARIAH TIMMS | The Tennessean
The Maury County Sheriff's Department has formally closed the investigation into the deaths of five by homicide-suicide at a Columbia home last October.
Cynthia Collier, 55, died as a result of a single shotgun wound, an autopsy conducted on Oct. 16 by Davidson County Senior Associate Medical Examiner David Zimmerman shows.
Her four children — Kaileigh Lin Collier, 17, Lia Lin Collier, 15, Bo Li Collier and Meigan Lin Collier, both 14 — also died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds, according to their respective autopsies.
Zimmerman determined all four children died as a result of homicide.
The deaths shook the close-knit Columbia community; hundreds attended a vigil in the family's honor in the days after the shootings.
Reclusive family, secluded home
The sheriff's office report corroborated those findings, according to a copy obtained by the USA TODAY Network-Tennessee.
Due to the nature of the deaths, no charges were ever filed in connection with the shootings.
The investigative report details what police found when they responded to a call of a deceased person at the secluded residence in the 1000 block of Carters Creek Pike, and the afternoon events that led to that call.
Around 4:45 p.m., Cynthia Collier's adult son, who also resided at the home, got off work and called his mother, as he usually did, he told police.
No one picked up.
He tried to reach out to his four younger siblings, but they did not reply either, nor were other family members able to get a response.
He was the one to find their bodies and to call the police.
Two deputies arrived at the house around 6:30 p.m.
Horror behind closed doors
To reach the house, they had to pass two secure gates to a house also guarded by a security system.
"The residence was isolated, protected...The residence wasn't visible from Carters Creek Pike and could only bee seen partially from the back yards of neighboring properties located on Roy Sellers Road," the supplemental report filed by Det. Sgt. Marcus Albright said.
Inside, they were led up two sets of stairs in the sprawling home.
There, the deputies found a gruesome scene. Five bodies were spread across four different rooms. Kaileigh Collier was found fatally shot on the bathroom floor. Her other three siblings were found dead in their beds.
Police say a handwritten note, confirmed by family members to match Cynthia Collier's handwriting, was found at the scene. The contents of the note were not included in the investigative file.
"There was some information that was left, it was very brief and vague, that would indicate that it would be murder-suicide," Maury County Sheriff Bucky Rowland said in a news conference in the days after the shootings.
No one else was home
As implied by statements included in an unfinished divorce filing in early 2018, the children's adopted father Randall Collier Sr. was only involved financially in their lives.
"Cynthia home schooled all of their children, and they all lived a very recluse (sic) lifestyle," Albright reported.
The investigation included analyzing surveillance footage of the property, which only showed the adult son resident leaving for work and returning around the time he said, the report indicates.
Cell phone records also supported his story, police report. Forensic analysis of blood spatter on Cynthia Collier was found to be consistent with the high velocity gunshots. The blood on her clothes was a match for three of the four children.
The investigation was closed Dec. 26, 2018.
Reach reporter Mariah Timms at mtimms@tennessean.com or 615-259-8344 and on Twitter @MariahTimms.