The system couldn't save her
Reporter: Craig Smith
TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Stunning revelations in a case of domestic violence that turned into murder.
Police outline what they saw after an ex boyfriend killed Claudia Pascual. Friends say the system failed her before.
It is a case with the power to bring outrage---and grief months after it happened.
A woman---stalked---and killed by an ex-boyfriend.
Now Tucson Police release new details in the death of Claudia Pascual.
Claudia Pascual died in February---the day before Valentines. But Tucson Police just gave KGUN9 News their reports from that day.
They detail an old story that becomes fresh over and over because Claudia Pascual's death and her life right before it, are the same pattern that will lead new victims to grief.
The terror comes through even in print: "Oh My God, he's here!"
That's what Claudia Pascual's boyfriend said she shouted into the phone as she saw her ex-boyfriend James Leonard the Third break in.
By the time police arrived. She was dead. Medics found five bullet wounds.
Police also found James Leonard leaning against the door. He had shot himself in the head. He lived long enough to die in the hospital.
Friends like Richelle Jasso say they knew Claudia was in trouble but didn't foresee it ending her life.
"She was scared but she didn't come right out and to say the degree of how scared she was."
But Claudia Pascual told friends she'd bought a gun and asked her brother to help her learn how to use it.
She doesn't seem to have tried the use it the day Leonard broke in. Police found it in a drawer near her bed.
Pascual told friends even after she got a court order to keep Leonard away, he kept coming back.
"He was continuing to stalk her and show up at her home, show up here at work, show up at the gym, sit outside of her house, continually begging her to take him back and she was refusing and just wanting him to leave her alone."
Police reports say she did have an order of protection.
The day she died, one officer was able to identify her by sight because he'd talked with her before. The report is not clear over what.
Throughout the reports, friends say she called police to report Leonard was not staying away but was told there was nothing she could do.
The day before she died, she called an officer to say Leonard had showed up at her church. The officer was off duty so the call went to voice mail.
He found it two days after she died.
As painful as the case is, Claudia Pascual's friends are willing to talk about it to work for changes that could prevent the next case like hers. They want tougher laws to prevent stalking. One idea is to make someone under an order of protection wear a non-removable GPS tracker that would send an alert and also help prove when a stalker's too close to a victim.





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