“Run and Call 911”: Sara Gilson’s Ex-Husband Describes the Night Their Son Escaped

The ex-husband of Sara Gilson has spoken publicly about the night she died, saying he wanted to correct what he described as a wave of inaccurate claims circulating online — and to make one thing clear about what their young son did and did not see.

Lyle Landers, a full-time firefighter who shares two children with Gilson, says their son heard the gunfire but never saw his mother after she was shot. That distinction, he says, matters enormously to a family already carrying more than it should have to.

What the Boy Saw

By Landers’ account, his son was in a separate room, playing a game on his computer, when he heard a disturbance elsewhere in the house.

The boy walked toward the entryway and saw his mother in the kitchen with Jeremiah “Shawn” Duffey, Gilson’s estranged husband, who Landers says was holding a gun. Duffey told the child to leave. Gilson, apparently understanding immediately how dangerous the moment had become, told her son to run and call 911.

He ran.

The Sprint for Help

The child went first to a neighbor’s house and knocked. No one came to the door.

He then set off toward the home of a state trooper who lived several houses down the street. While he was running, he heard a gunshot behind him. He kept going.

He eventually reached a different neighbor’s home roughly a block away and used a phone there to call his father.

The Call

Landers says that phone call terrified him. His first question was where his son was. Once he learned the boy was safe inside a neighbor’s house, he told him not to go back home under any circumstances — Landers had no information yet about what had happened inside.

He lives about four miles away and drove straight there. He has described the drive as one spent hoping, against what he already suspected, that the outcome would be something less final than what he found.

A Co-Parenting Arrangement Built on Trust

Landers has emphasized that he and Gilson stayed unusually close after their divorce. Custody, he says, was handled informally and flexibly rather than through rigid schedules — the children moved between the two households depending on his shift work as a firefighter.

The two spoke nearly every day.

That closeness is part of why the final weeks stand out so sharply to him.

The Warnings She Gave

In roughly the six weeks before her death, Landers says Gilson repeatedly told him she was afraid of Duffey. She said she no longer trusted him and worried he might come apart entirely.

Her concern eventually led her to raise something she had never suggested in all their years of co-parenting: that the children should live with Landers full time. According to Landers, she said it plainly, and the reason was her assessment of what she believed Duffey was capable of.

She was, by her ex-husband’s account, trying to move her children out of the way of something she could see coming.

The Documented Record

Court and police records paint a timeline that supports the sense of escalating danger.

On June 9, a girl and her parent reported to police that Duffey — who coached the girl’s traveling basketball team — had touched her inappropriately during an event at an elementary school. Another coach witnessed it, intervened on the spot, and reported it. Police later indicated that similar conduct toward the same player had allegedly occurred over an extended period across multiple jurisdictions and states.

Duffey left and was not located by police afterward.

Officers contacted Gilson and explained how to obtain an emergency protective order. She filed the next day, June 10, and it was granted. Duffey was removed from the home and ordered to remain 100 yards away from her at all times. The order was extended later that month, running through late August.

In her application, Gilson reportedly stated that Duffey had a firearm, had threatened to take his own life, and had gone on the run. Court records also show she had sought protective orders against him years earlier, in 2021, which were dismissed after she did not appear at the hearing.

On July 11, Gilson posted a video to TikTok, where she had built an audience of more than 30,000 followers, publicly accusing Duffey of pedophilia. She framed it using a widely circulated format in which users imitate a documentary interview, and captioned it with a note saying she wished she were joking.

Less than two weeks later, she was dead. Gilson was 43. Authorities in Owasso, Oklahoma, have described the shooting as a murder-suicide.

What This Case Illustrates

Domestic violence researchers have long identified the period around separation as the most dangerous stretch in an abusive relationship — the point at which a partner losing control is most likely to escalate. The presence of a firearm sharply increases the risk that violence becomes fatal.

Gilson appears to have done a great deal right. She reported. She obtained an order. She told people close to her that she was frightened. She began arranging for her children to be somewhere safer.

None of it was enough, which is the uncomfortable truth at the center of many of these cases. Protective orders are legal documents, not physical barriers, and their effectiveness depends on enforcement and on the other person’s willingness to comply.

A Family Left Behind

Two children are now without their mother, and one of them ran through a neighborhood in the dark trying to find an adult who could help. Landers’ insistence on correcting the public record — that his son did not see his mother afterward — reads less like a media clarification than an attempt to protect what little of the boy’s experience can still be protected.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. In the United States, the National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-7233, and advocates can assist with safety planning whether or not you are ready to leave. This is a difficult subject, and it’s worth talking to someone you trust if reading about it brings up something in your own life.