A murder-suicide in Aurora left two people dead and two children without their mother last week.

Aurora Police responded to a domestic violence call at 3 p.m. Friday in the 3500 block of South Pitkin Circle, according to a news release.

Responding officers found a 42-year-old man and 42-year-old woman in the driveway of the home with gunshot wounds. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

The Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office identified the woman as Katherine Lee Peters, manner of death homicide, and the man as Robert Childers. The investigation is ongoing, but the Coroner’s Officer said Childers’ manner of death appears to be suicide.

Peters leaves behind a 17-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son, according to police.

In a press conference, Aurora Police Chief Art Acevedo said it appeared as though Childers, the children’s stepfather, and Peters had a verbal argument that turned into a shooting.

This incident is indicative of a widespread domestic violence issue across Colorado, Acevedo said. He urged victims to come forward so police can help them before it gets worse.

“Why do we have a young girl a young boy who now have to bury their mother because of domestic violence?” Acevedo said. “It’s an alarm for all of us out there. If you are in a relationship that is not a good relationship, please, I urge you to seek help.”

In an area with a large immigrant community, many members of which are undocumented, domestic violence victims are often afraid to come forward, Acevedo said.

“Too often victims of domestic violence are afraid to come forward because they think we are ICE agents. We are not,” Acevedo said. “We are here to secure safety for the community.”

The removal of guns and firearms from homes where they shouldn’t be through the use of Colorado’s red flag law is an important step in reducing serious domestic violence incidents, Acevedo said.

“One of the things we have to do better is, when you have these volatile relationships, assessing the removal of firearms from homes with our red flag laws,” Acevedo said. “Guns and firearms in unhealthy relationships really raise the risk.”

This statement comes shortly after the shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs that shed new light on conversations about Colorado’s use, and lack thereof, of its red flag law.

The law, passed in 2019 and enacted in January 2020, allows family members, household members or law enforcement officers to petition the court for a temporary Extreme Risk Protection Order against a person who poses an imminent threat to themselves or others “by having in his or her custody or control a firearm or by purchasing, possessing, or receiving a firearm.”

Since the law was implemented three years ago, hundreds of red flag petitions have been filed in Colorado, although its implementation appears uneven, varying by jurisdiction.

Colorado has one of the lowest use rates of its red flag law, according to an Associated Press analysis from September. Colorado issued only 3.3 protection orders per 100,000 adult residents through 2021, ranking the sixth lowest among 19 states that have red flag laws. In comparison, the highest use rate was in Florida with 33.6 protection orders per 100,000 adult residents.

The case also fit the pattern identified recently by the Colorado Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board report that showed that 81% of domestic violence fatalities involve guns, and 90% of aggressors are male.

Ninety-one people died in 61 incidents in 2021, the highest number classified as domestic violence-related fatalities by the review board — chaired by Attorney General Phil Weiser — since its creation in 2016. Of those, 45 were the primary victims of the domestic violence identified, 32 were the perpetrators and 14 were collateral victims. Four were children.

Denver Gazette reporters Hannah Metzger and Julia Cardi contributed to this story.