People in Holton house recall standoff

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - When Sherri Billingsley saw the father of two of her children show up at her house on Holton Avenue Wednesday, she was just finding out that he was wanted for shooting and killing a woman. She didn't know what to do.

"I didn't want to say, 'Get out' and him turn on me," Sherri said with a soft voice.

Sherri started dating Kenneth Knight when she was 16 years old. Their relationship lasted about seven years. 

"He was a quiet person, but if he got upset, he reacted," she said.

Sherri actually knew the woman police said Knight shot and killed Wednesday morning . She and Jacqueline Hardy both do people's hair.

"She was a good person," Sherri said. "I feel bad for her family too. My heart goes out to both sides of the family. I just feel helpless."

A more than four-hour standoff with police and Knight Wednesday ended with police shooting and killing Knight. Thursday, Sherri was left to clean the blood off the front door.

"I never thought I'd be cleaning up my kids' dad's crime scene. I had to do it. I'm trying to find order," she said.

But, Sherri's mother, Loretta Masterson, can't bring herself to go out on the front porch yet.

"They killed this man in my house and I have to live here. I look over at the door bullet holes and the blood on the porch, I can't even go," she trailed off as emotion caught in her throat.

Sherri thinks Knight came to Masterson's home looking for his kids.

"When he saw them he grabbed them and hugged them and apologized. It was a goodbye type of thing. He knew the end of the day might be the end of the day," she said.

He also wanted to see news coverage of the morning's shooting. This all happened a little before noon.

"The news hadn't come on yet so we pulled it up on the computer," Sherri sad.

The chain of events that followed are almost a blur, Loretta and Sherri both recalled.

"I got a call that [police] had pulled my son over after he left the house. He has the same name and is the same height so I ran outside to let them know it's not him. I didn't think when I went outside that I wouldn't be able to get back in," Sherri said.

Loretta went to the door to look outside and found police officers surrounding the house.

"They told me to come out and I told them that my grandson was inside and they said they'd get him. They kept saying, 'Come out! Come out! Come out!' and they had guns pointing at me. I didn't know what to do, so I ran out the door. Everyone says I just ran off and left my [great-grandson] and I didn't. It didn't happen like that," Loretta said.

Three-year-old Preston is Sherri's grandchild and Loretta's great-grandchild. But, he is the son of one of Sherri's other children. The boy is not related to Knight.

"I wasn't worried he'd do anything to him," Sherri said.

Loretta said Preston was inside the house playing with toy trucks while the standoff played out on the porch. The little boy is doing okay now and doesn't really know what happened.

"I don't think this should have happened. I really don't. My son talked [Knight] down and [Knight] told him to come get the boy and then when he heard police he shut down," Loretta said. "He knew he messed up and knew he did wrong and he was going to give up and police kept getting involved and he shut down."

While Loretta said negotiations with family members seemed to be working, she also remembers Knight saying he wouldn't go back to prison.

"I told him he should give himself up and he said he wasn't. He said they are going to have to kill him," she said. "It's a shame. Two lives taken. What he did was wrong. Any time you take a life it's wrong."