The deputy who was shot dead by her detective boyfriend in a murder-suicide while they were on vacation in St. Augustine, Florida has been identified.
Abigail Bieber, 30, was found dead inside a St. Augustine rental home in the Butler Beach area early Sunday morning alongside her boyfriend, Det. Daniel Leyden, who was also pronounced dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
A preliminary investigation revealed that Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office Detective Daniel Leyden shot and killed Bieber – who worked as a deputy at the sheriff’s office – before turning the gun on himself.
Other deputies who were on vacation with the couple said they heard arguing from a bedroom before shots rang out at around 10pm Saturday night, according to News 4 Jacksonville.
And neighbors they saw deputies evacuating people through the second-story window of the vacation rental and calling for a man inside to come out with his hands on his head, the Tampa Bay Times reports.
The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office’s investigation into the murder-suicide is ongoing, even as Bieber’s body was transported in a hearse back home on Wednesday with officers lining the streets as it went by.
Bieber had worked at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, assigned to Uniform Patrol, since February 2018. She frequently responded to calls about sexual battery and child abuse, according to the sheriff’s office, and aspired to become a detective within the Criminal Investigations Special Victims Section.
‘Deputy Abigail Bieber was an outstanding law enforcement officer, and by all accounts an even better person who left a positive impact on every member of her squad and the countless members of our community who she encountered while on patrol,’ Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a statement.
‘This tragedy has left our Sheriff’s Office family grief-stricken. There is a void within our hearts that can never be filled, but I hope that Deputy Bieber’s legacy will be the way she lived her life – as a selfless servant.’
Co-workers remembered Bieber as a young woman with a positive attitude who never shied away from a tough investigation.
Retired Hillsborough Lt. Andrew Baxter also told the Tampa Bay Times that Bieber used to work the midnight shift under his command, noting that supervisors across the agency respected her work and were always trying to get her on their shifts.
‘She had the respect of her supervisors, and that’s kind of touch to do when you’re that young in your career,’ he said, recounting how he used to always joke with her whenever they saw each other in the break room. While he usually ate some sort of fast food, she would always heat up a healthy, home-cooked meal.
The fact that she died at the hands of another officer, Baxter said, ‘was personal on a few different levels.
‘She’s an angel on Earth, essentially, and she was brutally murdered by another one of us,’ he said. ‘And it’s not an easy pill to swallow.’
Former Hillsborough deputy Erika Delgado also described Bieber as a good friend and a good listener, saying: ‘If you needed something, doesn’t matter what, you could just call her up.’
She said Bieber had recently purchased a single-family house in northeast Clearwater, and her two German shepherds, Louis and Pepper, were her ‘babies.’
Following the news of Bieber’s death, Delgado said, dozens of deputies gathered to remember her over drinks.
They left one drink aside for Bieber, with a note scribbled on a napkin, saying: ‘This one’s for you. We got it from here. We miss you.’
