On Tuesday, July 13, Cedar Hill Texas Mayor Rob Franke heard the news: Coppell Mayor Jayne Peters had murdered her daughter and then shot herself. Franke called the police. He had a good idea which gun she’d used, and where she’d got it.
Franke told the police that he’d met with Peters on “city business” on July eight. During the course of their conversation, Peters told Franke she wanted to borrow his Glock 19. She claimed she was enrolling in a concealed carry course. Franke gave her his gun.
There was no such course.
Over the next six days, Peters practiced firing the Austrian 9mm pistol at the Bullseye Range and Guns in Duncanville, which is near Cedar Hill. During that time, her perilous finances were falling apart.
As we reported yesterday, Peters was racking-up charges on her Coppell credit card. The amounts unaccounted for on her city plastic ranges from $4000 to $6000. Peters was living on Coppell’s dime; some of the charges include groceries, pet food and other family items.
City Manager Clay Phillips knew about the fraud. He’d asked the city attorney to investigate Peters’ city-issued credit card—on the DL. Other city workers had no clue that Peters was headed for bankruptcy, disgrace and, ultimately, criminal charges. A fate she avoided by killing herself.
Peters’ suicide notes have been released. The police found the first one on her door:
To our first responders: Here is the key for the front door. I am so very sorry for what you are about to discover. Please forgive me. Jayne
“Our.” Not “my” or just “first responders.” Evidence that Peters had intended to kill her daughter long before she pulled the trigger that ended her own life.
The next note, discovered next to her cremated husband’s remains, is by far the most chilling:
O grace of God, please forgive me and have mercy on my eternal soul. My sweet, sweet Corinne had grown completely inconsolable. She had learned to hide her feelings from her friends, but the two of us were lost, alone and afraid. Corinne just kept on asking, ‘Why won’t God just let me die?’ We hadn’t slept at all and neither one of us could stop crying when we were together. Please ask my family to take care of my pets. The dogs, Hope and Lucy, should be kept together or put down. There are four cats: Mystic – the black cat – 9 years old
Sassy – Siamese – 11 years old
Snowflake – Siamese – 11 years old
Reno – brown Abyssinian – 6 years old
The third note is even more revealing:
Please, please, please, no funeral, no memorial, just cremate us both.”
Again, it’s clear that Peters had planned to kill her daughter.
Police discovered the fourth and final note on the door to the upstairs room where Jayne Peters shot herself in the head.
DNR, do not recesitate [sic], under any circumstances.
At 6:00 am on the day of her death, witnesses saw Corinne Peters loading the family car. The neighbors assumed the 19-year-old was packing to leave for her freshman orientation.
As has been widely reported, Corinne had not applied to any college or university. Her story to friends—that she was going to the University of Texas for her first semester—was a pure fabrication.
A quarter of an hour later, the same neighbors saw Corinne’s mother, Mayor Jayne Peters, unloading the car. It appears that Corinne’s mother had discovered the truth. Or stopped her daughter from escaping the murderous mayhem her mother had planned for both of them.
Today, the city of Coppell held a joint memorial service for Jayne and Corinne Peters. Many Coppell citizens were enraged that a nineteen-year-old girl shared her funeral service with the “monster who murdered her.”
On appalled Coppell citizen remarked that
Her mother is as guilty as I would be if I walked into a bank and robbed it, and then killed the teller.
That analysis assumes that Corinne Peters had no knowledge of her mother’s intentions. Given that both Peters women were living a lie, falsehoods that were about to be exposed, it is not a safe assumption.
