By Mark Bowes
Media General News Service

Crystal Diane Snipes was granted an emergency protection order two years ago against the man who killed her Thursday, May 13, after she gave a sworn statement that the man, her former boyfriend, had raped her and she feared for her life, court documents show.

The former boyfriend, Douglas E. Enroughty Jr., 28, died at VCU Medical Center of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“I’m scared that Mr. [Douglas] Enroughty will try to do harm to me,” Snipes wrote in her petition for the temporary protective order, which was granted by a Henrico County magistrate on June 29, 2008. “He has sent me threatening text messages and I am afraid. The reason being is I was raped by Mr. Enroughty and I told his father and I filed a police report.”

Snipes also indicated that Enroughty might harm her two children—one of whom was fathered by Enroughty. “He’ll go after them to get to me,” she wrote.

The protective order lapsed two weeks later after a Henrico judge ruled in a July 14, 2008, court hearing there was a lack of evidence to grant Snipes a permanent protective order, court records show. At the time, Snipes was living with Enroughty at a home in the 2800 block of Laurelton Court in Henrico.

Shortly thereafter, Snipes moved in with her father and stepmother at the family’s home in the 10300 block of Reams Road in Chesterfield County, where Snipes, 27, was gunned down Thursday about 3:30 p.m. after retrieving her 2½-year-old son, Aiden, from a baby sitter. Her older son, 6-year-old Tristan, was getting off the school bus from nearby Reams Road Elementary School about the time of the shooting, Lauren Snipes, Crystal’s stepmother, said yesterday.

Aiden was apparently still in his child safety seat in his mother’s car when police say Enroughty confronted her in the front yard and opened fire. She died of a gunshot wound to the back of her head, according to the state medical examiner’s office.

“Aiden saw [what happened], because the last thing he said was, ‘Daddy shot mommy,’” Lauren Snipes said.

Police say Enroughty then turned the gun on himself. But he survived the shooting and was taken to VCU Medical Center, where he died.

Lauren Snipes said Enroughty couldn’t accept the fact that Crystal Snipes no longer wanted to be with him. She had “moved on,” entering into a new relationship with a new boyfriend.

“He wanted her back, but she didn’t want to go back,” Lauren Snipes said. “He had sent her several e-mails saying, ‘If I can’t have you, nobody else will.’ It was very disturbing.”

Snipes said she and her husband pleaded with Enroughty’s father to get his son some psychiatric help.

“He was sending e-mails and text messages threatening her, making comments that were unstable,” Snipes said. “We made copies of them and shared them with his father, telling him, please get your son help before something drastic happens. It’s a crying shame that this happened. It could have been prevented.”

Police investigators were checking on the couple’s history, including the threatening e-mails.

“We’re going to be looking at some computers . . . to see what we can find,” said Chesterfield police Capt. Terry Patterson.

Enroughty was never charged with assaulting Snipes, although Henrico authorities confirmed that she did file a report. A police spokesman said he couldn’t share information from the report because Chesterfield’s investigation is still active.

Lauren Snipes said Enroughty had visitation rights for his son, Aiden, and would baby-sit him a couple days a week while Crystal worked. She was employed as a nurse’s aide with CareAdvantage, a home health-care service.

Enroughty, who worked at Red Lobster, wasn’t scheduled to pick up his son on Thursday. “He wasn’t even supposed to be here,” Snipes said.

On Thursday after picking Aiden up from his baby sitter’s house, Crystal Snipes drove home to meet her older son as he got off the bus. He was to attend a birthday party later that evening, Lauren Snipes said.

“They appear to be doing OK right now,” Snipes said of the children. “But I don’t think the full weight of everything that’s happened has totally set in for them—that their mother really isn’t coming back.”