Search fatalities

Valerie Marie Gudger

Age : 37

Gender : Female

Race : Black

Date : 09/16/2021

Location : 600 block of Eddy Road

City : Cleveland

County : Cuyahoga

State : Ohio

Agency : Cleveland Police Department, Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office

Officer(s) :N/A

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Officer killed by boyfriend in murder/suicide

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/16/2021, 41-year-old Brandon Lee Smith died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after an approximately eight-hour Cleveland police SWAT barricade that followed the killing of his girlfriend, 37-year-old Cuyahoga County Corrections Officer Valerie Marie Gudger. Police investigated the deaths as a murder-suicide.
.
The incident began that afternoon with Smith and Gudger together in a vehicle. Cleveland police alleged that the couple were arguing when Smith shot Gudger multiple times. Police said Smith subsequently left Gudger in a field near East 124th Street and Brackland Avenue and shot her again before leaving the area.
.
Police responded shortly after 2 p.m. and found Gudger suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Gudger worked as a corrections officer for Cuyahoga County.
.
Investigators identified Smith as Gudger's boyfriend and connected him to a residence in the 600 block of Eddy Road. Significantly, Smith also reportedly had a law-enforcement background: multiple sources identified him as a former Cuyahoga County corrections officer.
.
Cleveland police and SWAT surrounded the Eddy Road residence after Smith barricaded himself inside. Police described Smith as armed. The resulting barricade lasted approximately eight hours.
.
At approximately 10:30 p.m., SWAT officers entered the residence and found Smith dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Police recovered three firearms from the residence. No police gunfire was reported as causing Smith's death.
.
Smith's death therefore qualifies for this database as a suicide under police duress. His death occurred at the conclusion of an extended armed SWAT barricade while police surrounded the residence and sought to take him into custody.
.
Gudger's killing and Smith's subsequent suicide should be distinguished clearly. Gudger was the homicide victim whose death precipitated the police operation; Smith was the person police sought during the resulting barricade and died by suicide before SWAT could arrest him. There were therefore two deaths associated with the sequence of events.
.
OFFICER BACKGROUND
No Cleveland police officer killed Smith. Because Smith died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, there is no shooting officer requiring an individual officer-background investigation for this case.
.
The involvement of the Cuyahoga County corrections system is nevertheless unusually relevant because both Gudger and Smith had connections to it. Gudger was an active county corrections officer, while Smith was reported by multiple sources to be a former corrections officer.
.
The Cuyahoga County jail system was already undergoing significant accountability problems during this period. In April 2021, only five months before these deaths, former corrections officer Martin Devring was sentenced to jail after pleading guilty to tampering with records and dereliction of duty stemming from an incarcerated person's 2018 death. Investigators determined that Devring failed to conduct required rounds, ignored the dying man and falsified jail logs.
.
Another Cuyahoga County corrections officer, Andre Julius Bacsa, was arrested in June 2021 and indicted the following month over sexual assaults involving incarcerated people inside the county jail. Bacsa resigned in September 2021—the same month Gudger was killed—and later pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery, sexual imposition and sexual restraint.
.
Those cases are unrelated to Smith's actions or Gudger's killing and provide no evidence that either was involved in jail misconduct. They are relevant only as documented institutional context showing that the Cuyahoga County corrections system was undergoing serious personnel and accountability problems during the same period.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://fox8.com/news/cuyahoga-county-corrections-officer-killed-in-suspected-murder-suicide/
https://fox8.com/news/woman-shot-and-killed-on-clevelands-east-side-swat-on-scene/
https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/09/17/cuyahoga-county-corrections-officer-murdered-suspect-then-takes-own-life-police-say/
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/cleveland-metro/officials-identify-corrections-officer-killed-in-suspected-murder-suicide-in-cleveland
https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/09/16/armed-suspect-barricaded-home-near-where-woman-was-shot-death-cleveland-police-say/
https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Media/News-Releases/April-2021/Former-Cuyahoga-County-Corrections-Officer-Sentenc
https://www.cleveland19.com/2022/03/17/cuyahoga-county-corrections-officer-guilty-sexual-assaults-county-jail/