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A retired Ventura County Superior Court judge shot and killed his girlfriend before turning the gun on himself, police said. Ventura police said they responded to a home for a call of a domestic dispute. Upon arrival, officers reported hearing multiple gunshots within the home. Hostage negotiators communicated with 69-year-old Herbert Curtis III for three hours before they rushed into the home. When they entered the home, officers said they found Curtis dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Curtis' girlfriend, 54-year-old Patricia Payne, was found alive but died from multiple gunshot wounds.
This record exists so that Patricia Payne, and all who are named in this archive, are never reduced to a number.
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