Suspect’s wife speaks out after killing of Coast deputy. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Usually, Shannon Rohrbacker could calm her husband down when he had a psychotic episode.
Monday was different.
“There was no reasoning with him,” she said. “I called 911 to get him help. You could look at his face and know he wasn’t there anymore. I call it a blackout. He doesn’t remember what he does when he gets in that shape, and then reality hits. He’s never done anything this severe.”
Her husband, Joseph Michael Rohrbacker, 30, shot and killed Hancock County Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Boutte shortly after he responded to a 911 call at the couple’s home, Shannon Rohrbacker said Tuesday morning. The couple lived in an apartment on Earl C. Ladner Road in the Necaise community.
“From the bottom of my heart to that officer’s family, I’m so sorry,” Rohrbacker said. “ He didn’t deserve that.”
She said her husband suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Boutte was the first deputy to respond to the report of an attempted suicide at the home off Caesar Necaise Road, Sheriff Ricky Adam said Monday.
Boutte was shot as soon as he got out of his vehicle, Adam said.
When a second deputy got there, the suspect shot at him and that deputy shot and injured Joseph Rohrbacker.
Hancock County Sheriff Ricky Adam is holding a press conference at 1 p.m. to further discuss the case.
Suspect’s family witnessed fatal shooting of Coast deputy
Shannon Rohrbacker saw it all.
“As soon as the cop stepped out of his out of his truck, my husband shot him,” she said. “I’m just numb. I have no idea how to feel. We’ve been so upset about the officer who lost his life. Can you imagine going to work and not coming home?”
When the second deputy arrived, Shannon saw her husband fire again at that deputy, and then saw her husband shot in return.
“We had to hold the bandages on his (husband’s) stomach and his wounds,” she said. “The bullet went in, but it never came back out. He was gargling on his own blood. When they put him on the ambulance to take to the helicopter they were helping him breathe. I have no idea how he is.”
Boutte and Rohrbacker were airlifted to a Louisiana hospital, where Boutte died.
Joseph Rohrbacker’s condition was not immediately known. His wife had not been able to get an update on her husband’s condition over the phone Monday. She was waiting on a ride to Louisiana Tuesday to check on his condition.
“Either way it goes, my husband has lost his life either way,” Shannon Rohrbacker said. “If he pulls through, he’s still lost it.”
Suspect terrified family, stabbed dog
In the hours leading up to the 911 call, Shannon Rohrbacker said she and her husband’s brother did what they could to try to calm him down, but nothing worked.
He had “a mental meltdown,” his wife said, shortly after he overheard a call about someone trying to wrongfully accuse him of a crime to aid in a divorce proceeding.
He got angry. Then, she said, he started “cussing, kicking and screaming,” and nothing could calm him down.
Despite his fury, she said, he said at one point he was going to go fishing, but instead of grabbing the fishing poles on the porch he grabbed a .12-gauge shotgun. The antique shotgun, she said, had been a gift to her husband from a relative about eight months earlier.
His wife called for help. She thought it’d end like it had many times before when the couple lived in his native Picayune.
On many occasions, she said, she called authorities in Picayune and they’d come out, take him to a hospital, and he’d get help and come back home.
This time was different, she said, and she and her family were terrified.
Shannon Rohrbacker had gone into a nearby relative’s home, then she heard children screaming outside.
“I came out and they said he had slit the dog’s throat,” she said. “I really don’t know what was going through his mind. I”m sure he didn’t wake up yesterday and say, ‘I’m going to do this.’”
Despite what happened Rohrbacker wants people to know that her husband had a good side to him.
“He was a good-hearted person, always a jokester and a prankster,” she said. “He loved the outdoors. He loved to hunt. He loved to fish.
“He was usually a very good guy but he made a very bad choice and it cost someone his life. I’ve known him all my life but this was different. I was terrified. Everybody was terrified. We didn’t know what to do.”
Suspect to face capital murder, other charges
At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Adam remembered the 20-year veteran law enforcement officer and Air Force veteran as a man who had devoted his life to service.
At the time of his death, Boutte had worked at the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office for eight years.
“Mike was a fine fellow,” Adam said. “He wasn’t just a great deputy. He was a great person, just a fine fellow. To say all things that make Mike a great cop, I’d be up here for days. I could just go on and on about every time we ever needed anything. Any time we needed anything, someone in the community flagged him down and needed something, he was there.”
Boutte mentored younger law enforcement officers as well.
Adam, who was visibly shaken, said Boutte had been shot in the head and face after responding to the disturbance Monday and died shortly after he arrived at the New Orleans hospital.
The sheriff refused to acknowledge the shooter by name to give him recognition, but said the man had undergone three surgeries since a deputy shot him. Adam expects Rohrbacker to face charges of capital murder, aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and other charges as early as Tuesday.
Adam also said to his knowledge Hancock deputies had not been called to any other previous incident involving Rohrbacker.
He referred any other questions about what happened to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the agency handling the independent investigation.
The sheriff’s office has received an outpouring of support from in- and out-of-state law enforcement agencies and the community since Boutte’s death.
The sheriff’s office is helping the family with arrangements and benefits.
“While we’ll never understand God’s reason for taking Mike from us at this moment, this loss will remain unhealed for quite some time,” Adam said. “I hope and pray that family and friends of Mike find comfort in knowing he was truly loved by everyone who worked here.”
Adam asked for prayers for the sheriff’s office and the family in the coming days and months as they try to cope with the loss.
The sheriff’s office also plans to set up a fund for donations to help the family.
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 12:39 PM.
