Two career foreign service officers are dead after contentious divorce proceedings.
Authorities believe Jason Rieff, who worked at the State Department, killed his wife, Lola Gulomova, who was employed at the Commerce Department, on Friday before a court hearing to work out the final details of their divorce.
Before the hearing, Rieff’s lawyer received an urgent message from her client, law enforcement officials told the Washington Post. The lawyer called 911 and police broke down the door of the couple’s home in northwest Washington, D.C.
Police found Rieff, 51, holding a handgun. Authorities said he then shot himself in the head. He later died at the hospital.
In another room, police found Gulomova, 45, dead from several gunshot wounds. They believe Rieff killed her before turning the gun on himself.
“She was very ambitious, and she was always smiling,” Gulomova’s friend Katherine Jacobs said. “She did a beautiful job balancing being a mom and doing an extraordinary service to her country.”
The couple married in 2000 and had two young daughters, who were not home at the time of the shootings. Their older daughter was set to graduate fifth grade during a ceremony at Janney Elementary School in Tenleytown Friday evening. The ceremony was postponed after the deaths.
The couple’s marital problems appeared to begin in 2015 when they returned from their last overseas assignment. Gulomova eventually filed for divorce.
Their relationship further soured when Rieff discovered Gulomova had accepted a four-year posting in Belgrade and planned to take their daughters with her.
Gulomova was granted a default divorce and given full custody of their children in March after Rieff failed to show up for court hearings. Another hearing was set for Friday after Rieff’s newly hired lawyer contested the decision.
