Victim of shooting was technician for Mental Health Department

12/26/2012

A Toledo man identified variously as the husband and ex-husband of a woman who was fatally shot Monday night in West Toledo turned himself in to police Tuesday and was charged with aggravated murder.

Robert F. Carter, 43, of 1143 Belmont Ave., surrendered at police headquarters about 11 hours after the shooting of Wendabi Triplett, 41, at about 11 p.m. Monday in the 4400 block of Terrace View Street.

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Ms. Triplett, who state records show was a technician for the Ohio State Mental Health Department, was taken to Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead about 1:40 a.m. Tuesday, according to a police report.

Mr. Carter also is charged with two counts of aggravated menacing and two counts of domestic violence stemming from a complaint Ms. Triplett filed against him on Nov. 6 for allegedly threatening two of her children while they were inside a car parked at her workplace the day before.

Mr. Carter was held Tuesday night in the Lucas County jail pending arraignment today in Toledo Municipal Court.

Toledo police responding to a report of the shooting found Ms. Triplett in the street next to a vehicle.

Police quickly identified Mr. Carter, a truck driver whom Ms. Triplett married in Lucas County in 2010, as a person of interest in the case.

She was 38, and he was 40 at the time.

A police statement Tuesday described Mr. Carter as Ms. Triplett's ex-husband, but her complaint against him last month described him as her husband.

Lucas County marriage records list Ms. Triplett as a therapeutic program worker.

She was a 1989 graduate of Rogers High School in Wyoming, Mich., according to her Facebook page.

In the Nov. 5 incident, according to arrest warrants, Ms. Triplett’s three children, ages 15, 17, and 21, were inside her car shortly after she had arrived at work when Mr. Carter approached from behind the vehicle.

Two of the three tried to leave the car, but he forced them back inside. He then fetched a gun from his own vehicle and pointed it at the car with them inside, the warrants state.

There have been 50 homicides in the metro area this year and 38 in the city of Toledo.