Just a few hours before a California man allegedly killed his 8-year-old daughter, a judge approved a restraining order to protect her and her mother from him.
The girl’s mother petitioned for the restraining order Monday, it was approved by the judge Wednesday morning and proof of service was filed with the court at 4:15 p.m. About three hours later, the girl was dead, allegedly shot by her father, 50-year-old Donovan Halstead.
Two petitions for domestic violence restraining orders filed by the girl’s mother detail years of verbal and physical abuse and foreshadowed the horrors to come.
Modesto police were called to the family’s Village 1 home on Havenhurst Court just before 7 p.m. for a report of a suicidal man.
Officers could see Halstead through a window and immediately attempted to communicate with him, according to a Modesto Police Department news release.
Halstead told officers he would come out unarmed but he never did. Instead, officers heard gunshots from inside the home. He’d allegedly shot his daughter and then himself. The girl died at the scene and Halstead was taken to a hospital.
Neither the girl’s mother nor anyone else was inside the home with Halstead and the girl at the time of the shooting. The mother had secured new housing and moved out while Halstead and their daughter were visiting family in Montana for the Fourth of July holiday.
She’d filed for divorce in April but didn’t serve Halstead at the time because she was concerned for her and her daughter’s safety, according to her petition for a domestic violence restraining order.
The petition said Halstead owned two handguns and four rifles.
The mother didn’t know that while she was moving out, Halstead was monitoring her on the home’s security cameras. When he became aware his wife was moving out, Halstead abruptly ended the trip and drove “nonstop” from Montana to California, according to the petition.
During the drive, Halstead repeatedly called and sent her text messages. “Our daughter was hysterically crying in the vehicle as (Halstead) called me names, telling me I am ruining his life and our daughter’s life,” the mother wrote in the petition. “I would beg (Halstead) to stop as our daughter was in great distress and I was concerned that … (he was) putting both our daughter and himself at risk.”
When the mother stopped answering his calls, Halstead, according to the petition, texted her statements including: “This is on your hands;” “I hope you think about this as long as you live;” “your choices have consequences;” and “(Our daughter) is going with me.”
The mother attached text messages from Halstead to her petition, as well as texts from another concerned family member who encouraged him to call 988, the Suicide and Crisis Hotline.
The mother said in the petition that she hadn’t had contact with Halstead or her daughter since July 6, when they were still driving back from Montana, and did not know their location. She wrote that she called police for help but was told to file for the domestic violence restraining order. The mother wrote that Halstead was verbally abusive throughout their relationship and that she was regularly subjected to name calling, demeaning statements and threats, according to the petition.
She detailed several occasions in which the verbal abuse escalated to violence. In separate incidents in January and March, according to the petition, Halstead prevented his wife from leaving the home during an argument. He forced her to the ground, pinned her down with his knees on her arms, took her keys and cell phone and in one of the incidents choked her. Their daughter was present during both incidents, according to the petition.
“I am greatly concerned about the safety of our daughter,” the mother wrote in the petition. “(Halstead) is extremely angry with me and I believe that he will use our daughter to punish me for ending our abusive marriage.”
The mother filed for a legal separation from Halstead in 2016, but the two reconciled three months later. Before they did, the mother was granted sole physical and legal custody of their daughter, who was 1 at the time, and a domestic violence restraining order protecting both of them. In that petition, she recounted instances of verbal abuse and physical abuse that included choking, pushing and pinning her down.
“(Halstead) has told me he attempted suicide in the past and I fear that he will harm us, and himself, given his erratic behavior,” the mother wrote in the 2016 petition.
During the separation, Halstead had supervised visits with his daughter and went to counseling, according to court documents.
Court documents show the restraining order that was approved Wednesday was served electronically. The person being served was listed as Halstead, but in care of an attorney, whose email address was listed on the proof of service document. It is unknown if the attorney notified Halstead of the restraining order.
Modesto Police Department spokeswoman Sharon Bear said the restraining orders against Halstead are part of detectives’ investigation but declined to comment further. She would not say if Halstead, his daughter or someone else called police, nor elaborate on the interaction officers had with Halstead or the timeline of when exactly the shootings occurred and when officers entered the house.
As of Thursday afternoon, Halstead was still in the hospital but he is not expected to survive.
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