Man Kills Ex After She Announced Engagement to Another Man on Facebook

Sept. 1, 2010 — -- A North Carolina woman was fatally shot by her ex-boyfriend after she posted news of her engagement to another man on her Facebook page , police told ABC News.

Karen Ann Rooney, 63, was found shot several times in her Maysville, N.C., home Saturday night by a neighbor. With her was Peter Terrance Moonan, 62, who is believed to have killed Rooney before turning the gun on himself.

Rooney and Moonan had dated for 16 years prior to breaking up earlier this year.

According to Onslow County Sheriff's Maj. Donnie Worrell, Rooney was killed by her jealous ex-boyfriend whose rage may have been triggered by her Facebook page.

"[Rooney and Moonan] split up in February and since that time Rooney had met someone else," said Worrell. "And as of Aug. 1 she had changed her status to engaged."

"His family told us that he was having a hard time dealing with [news of the engagement] but that he had not shown any signs of anger or mental issues or anything else," he said.

"Everyone was surprised," said Worrell.

On Rooney's Facebook page , many of her friends had left celebratory messages on her recent engagement, one friend writing, "Congratulations!!! You guys make a great couple."

A photo on her Facebook page shows her posing with the man who would have been her future husband, William Jenkins.

Engagement Announcement on Facebook Leads to Murder-Suicide

Reached by phone at his Newport, N.C., home, Jenkins declined to discuss Rooney's death with ABC News.

On her Facebook profile page, Rooney wrote about her 2003 retirement from IBM, where she had worked for 30 years as an adminstrative assistant.

"I spent my time gardening and walking the beach whenever I can," she wrote on her page.

Worrell said it was a neighbor who had wanted Rooney to meet his new wife who discovered the bloody scene.

This is the second instance of a Facebook post spurring violence in the past week.

A California man was charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment after he allegedly bound, tortured and threatened the life of his girlfriend, holding her hostage for four days when a post on her Facebook page sent him into a jealous rage.

Anthony Lozano, 36, was arrested Saturday by the Kings County Sheriff's Department after his 23-year-old girlfriend, who has not been identified, managed to escape the Hanford, Calif., home they shared and call police. The couple's child, who is around 3, and another older child of the alleged victim were also in the home at the time but were not injured, police said.

According to Sheriff's Cmdr. Dave Putnam, Lozano held his girlfriend captive beginning Tuesday of last week after he discovered a Facebook conversation between her and another man.

"It was an issue of jealousy," said Putnam. "She claimed that the male she was writing to was just a friend and Mr. Lozano was accusing her of being unfaithful to him, something that she denies."

During the days that the victim was held in the home, Lozano tied her up and violently beat her, according to Putnam.

"Lozano repeatedly struck her all over the body and actually at some points tied her up and bound her and tortured her with the repeated strikes on a daily basis," said Putnam. "He threatened to kill her several times throughout the several days she was held against her will," said Putnam. "Some of the false imprisonment was by force and fear. He told her that if she tried to leave he'd kill her."

"This is the first case like this where we've seen a direct cause of an argument because of Facebook," said Putnam. "But I imagine it's a trend we'll see with the ballooning of social media."