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Mari Bonnici

Age : 38

Gender : Female

Race : White

Date : 08/10/2025

Location : 4600 block of Quigg Drive

City : Santa Rosa

County : Sonoma

State : California

Agency : Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office

Officer(s) :Jeremy Lyle

Cause of Death : Suicide

Event : Detention officer killed by deputy husband

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 08/10/2025, off-duty Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Lyle, 44, shot and killed his former domestic partner, 38-year-old Mari Bonnici, inside her apartment in the 4600 block of Quigg Drive in Santa Rosa. Bonnici was the mother of Lyle’s three young children and was herself employed by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office as a detention specialist.
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The killing occurred during an escalating custody dispute. Court-record reporting established that Bonnici had filed on 06/10/2025 to dissolve her domestic partnership with Lyle, citing irreconcilable differences. She requested legal and physical custody of their three children and asked that Lyle receive visitation but no overnight visits because she believed that arrangement would be safer for the children.
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Most significantly, Bonnici’s family-court filing reportedly alleged that Lyle had a history of committing abuse. This is important because initial police statements said there had been no previous domestic-violence reports involving the couple. The absence of prior police reports therefore did not mean there was no prior allegation of abuse: Bonnici herself had raised abuse in the custody proceedings shortly before Lyle killed her.
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At approximately 7 p.m. on August 10, Lyle went to Bonnici’s apartment. Police believe he shot her there. Three of their children — twin toddlers and an infant — were present in connection with the incident.
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After shooting Bonnici, Lyle carried the infant to a neighboring apartment, handed the baby to a woman there and told her to call 911 because the child’s mother was hurt. He then left.
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Santa Rosa police responded at approximately 7:02 p.m. Officers forced their way into Bonnici’s apartment and found her unresponsive on the living-room couch with at least one gunshot wound. She was pronounced dead. The twin toddlers were found physically unharmed in a back bedroom.
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Approximately 30 minutes later, police located Lyle’s personal truck at the Sonoma County Coroner’s Office at 3336 Chanate Road. Officers found Lyle standing in the bed of the truck with a handgun. Santa Rosa SWAT personnel and hostage negotiators began an extended effort to persuade him to surrender.
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The standoff continued for nearly five hours. At approximately 2 a.m. on 08/11/2025, Lyle shot himself and died. His suicide was witnessed by law-enforcement personnel at the scene.
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Bonnici and Lyle had both worked inside the same law-enforcement organization. Lyle was a sworn deputy with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, while Bonnici was a detention specialist. The case therefore involved an employee of the sheriff’s office allegedly documenting abuse by a sworn deputy, seeking restrictions on his access to their children, and then being killed by that deputy approximately two months later.
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The distinction between “no previous domestic violence reports” and Bonnici’s family-court allegations is particularly important. Santa Rosa police said they had no previous domestic-violence reports involving the couple, but court reporting subsequently revealed Bonnici’s allegation that Lyle had a history of abuse.
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The custody proceedings therefore warrant close examination for any indication that Bonnici described specific abusive acts, threats, firearm concerns, coercive control, workplace-related intimidation or fear of Lyle. They may also establish whether anyone associated with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office knew about the allegations before the killing.
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The Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights subsequently cited Bonnici’s killing in a formal discussion of domestic violence, describing her as a dedicated public servant whose life was “stolen in an act of violence perpetrated by someone sworn to uphold the law.”
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Bonnici’s friends also established a verified fundraiser to support her three children. The fundraiser describes Bonnici as a devoted mother and states that the children’s grandmother, Loni Bonnici, would handle the funds for their care.
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The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office had substantial preexisting controversy involving use of force and civilian oversight. In September 2025, the county’s Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach became embroiled in a dispute with the Sonoma County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association over IOLERO’s independent investigation of the 2022 fatal shooting of farmworker David Peláez-Chavez by a sheriff’s deputy.
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That dispute was significant because IOLERO’s Peláez-Chavez investigation represented an attempt to exercise expanded civilian-oversight authority approved by Sonoma County voters. Attorneys for deputies challenged the watchdog’s methods and authority, illustrating an ongoing institutional conflict over independent investigation and accountability within the Sheriff’s Office.
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The Bonnici case raises a different but equally serious accountability question: whether a sheriff’s employee’s allegations concerning abuse by a sworn deputy were known to the agency, supervisors or coworkers before he killed her. The underlying family-court records, Lyle’s personnel and internal-affairs records, any workplace complaints, firearm records and communications involving Bonnici or Lyle are therefore especially important records for this case.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Jeremy Lyle was the Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy who killed Mari Bonnici. Unlike many off-duty domestic killings involving police where the perpetrator’s employment is peripheral, Lyle’s status is directly relevant because both he and Bonnici worked for the same Sheriff’s Office and Bonnici had recently alleged a history of abuse in litigation concerning their children.
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Lyle had been a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy since March 2015 and was serving as the resident deputy for the Timber Cove area when he killed Bonnici.
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Public payroll records show that Lyle was receiving exceptionally large amounts of overtime compensation. In 2023 alone, county payroll data list more than $121,000 in overtime pay in addition to his regular salary. That makes his work schedules, assignments and supervisory relationships potentially relevant when examining what the department knew about his behavior during the period preceding Bonnici’s killing.
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The most important adverse history identified is Bonnici’s own allegation. During the custody dispute shortly before her death, she reportedly asserted that Lyle had a history of abuse and sought sole legal and physical custody while proposing visitation without overnight stays because she believed that arrangement was safer for their children.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/deputy-kills-ex-partner/
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sonoma-county-deputy-murder-suicide-20812667.php
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/homicide-shooting-sheriff-santa-rosa/
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/sonoma-county-sheriffs-deputy-murder-suicide-jeremy-lyle/
https://localnewsmatters.org/2025/08/13/sonoma-county-sheriffs-deputy-detention-specialist-killed-in-apparent-murder-suicide/
https://norcalpublicmedia.org/2025081198861/news-feed/2-sonoma-county-sheriffs-office-employees-dead-in-apparent-murder-suicide
https://www.ksro.com/2025/08/12/murder-suicide-leaves-two-sonoma-county-sheriffs-office-employees-dead/
https://abc7.com/amp/post/shooting-santa-rosa-ca-off-duty-sonoma-county-sheriffs-deputy-jeremy-lyle-kills-mari-bonnici-himself-murder-suicide/17506785/
https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/santa-rosa-2-sonoma-sheriff-s-employees-dead-in-20814108.php
https://www.kqed.org/news/12057115/sonoma-county-sheriffs-union-demands-probe-of-civilian-watchdog
GoFundMe:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-maris-children-after-tragic-loss