As a single mother, Crystal Ruhl was very protective of her children.
So when she started dating a handsome man from church, Crystal didn’t introduce him right away. In fact, she waited until they had been dating for a full year before he met the kids.
“She took her time,” Crystal’s sister Stephanie Rule told USA Today this week. “She definitely had a glow of happiness that I hadn’t seen in a long time… My sister trusted him and fell in love with him. She finally found herself happily ever after.”
But on Dec. 22, just two years after she married Jason Kenney, he ended up killing Crystal in their Florida home and shooting her 13-year-old daughter in the face over an argument at a football game three days before Christmas, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Kenny later shot himself.
Crimes that occurred during the December holiday period shocked the nation.
“This 13-year-old girl was pleading not to be shot — ‘Please don’t shoot me. Please don’t shoot me,'” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference the week of the attack. “He shot her twice.”
Now, as Krystal’s family grieves and reels in shock, USA TODAY is telling her story and how she used her final moments to save her children.
Crystal Roure (bottom left) poses with Santa Claus, her three children, her mother Debbie Bailey (far left), sister Stephanie Roure (far right) and her sister-in-law Sandra Bartlett (back row, second from left) on December 11, 2025, just before Christmas. 11 days after her husband shot and killed her.
Who is Crystal Ruhl?
From an early age, Crystal Ruhl showed ambition and a determination to work hard.
Her sister Stephanie recalled how well Crystal did in school, and as a teenager she got her first job at TGI Friday’s, where she quickly rose through the ranks from hostess to waitress.
“What sets her apart from others is that she doesn’t just work for the paycheck…she works for the experience,” Stephanie said. “She strives for knowledge. She strives to prove to herself that she can do things and not give up.”
But when she became a mother at 25, “everything she did from that moment on was for her children.”
“She works harder and longer,” Stephanie said. “Somehow, she’s Superwoman. She manages to hold down a full-time job and be a stay-at-home mother.”
Although Crystal has to juggle work and kids while single, she doesn’t miss school events, award shows or field trips. She also managed to buy a house on her own, “because she’s a smart woman,” Stephanie said.
“Her children were her world. She worked hard for them, fed them. She protected them,” she said. “They come first.”
Pictured is Crystal Luer.
When Crystal married Kenny, ‘she lost that glow’
In the early days of their relationship, photos on Facebook showed the pair smiling and kissing each other in many selfies. Other photos show them and their children posing in front of the Christmas tree and at baseball games, looking like a perfect family.
But shortly after they were married on November 4, 2023, Stephanie said: “My sister lost the light she once had.”
At first, Stephanie blamed the change on Crystal becoming pregnant with her third child soon after the wedding.
“I remember asking her, ‘Are you okay?'” Stephanie said. “She said, ‘Yes,’ except that this pregnancy was really hard on her because she was so much older.”
Although Stephanie said she always had a “meh” feeling about Kenny, she thinks her sister is happy and safe.
Until she got the worst phone call of her life.
Pictured is Crystal Luer.
What happened to Crystal Ruhr?
Crystal and her three children spent the evening of December 22 next to the Christmas tree at their home in Highland City, east of Tampa. Sheriff Judd said Kenny, meanwhile, was drinking and watching Monday Night Football in his shed until about 11 p.m.
When Kenny walks into the home and wants to continue watching the game, a fight ensues. Judd said things got so scary that Crystal asked her 12-year-old son to run to a neighbor’s house and call 911.
As the boy ran outside, he heard the first gunshots. Officers who arrived on the scene found Crystal dead inside, her 13-year-old daughter had been shot in the face and shoulder, and Jason Kenney was missing. They also found a letter Crystal wrote to her husband, telling him: “You’re drinking, you’re doing cocaine. This is not how a family should be. You need God.”
The couple’s one-year-old daughter was not injured. Judd said the 13-year-old girl survived the bullet, which hit the bridge of her nose and deflected over her head.
After shooting his wife and stepdaughter, Kenney drove his truck to his late father’s home and called his sister to tell her he had “done something really, really bad,” Judd said, which was the last time they spoke.
Deputies tracked Kenny to a shed on his father’s property. When they called him out, they heard a gunshot and found Kenny dead inside.
Judd said a relative told deputies that Kenney had been beating Crystal “for some time,” although the Sheriff’s Office has no record of any domestic violence calls or charges. Jason Kenney has no criminal record, Judd said.
“He completely destroyed a family,” Judd said. “When you go in, there’s a beautiful Christmas tree with lots of Christmas gifts under the tree, just like what a nuclear family should be… and that’s how it turned out.”
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd holds a photo of Jason Kenney during a news conference on Dec. 23, 2025.
How is Crystal’s family doing now?
Krystal’s family relied on each other as they dealt with the shock of her murder and raised money for the children. Crystal’s 13-year-old daughter is “recovering really well,” and “it’s a miracle the bullet didn’t hit anything major,” Stephanie said.
As for any abuse leading up to the tragedy, Stephanie said it’s possible but she was unaware of any abuse.
“After they got married, I know she said he was drinking more, but she said he would stop and said he would get help. Apparently that didn’t happen,” she said, adding that when she would visit, Kenny would “sit outside in the shed playing mobile games and smoking.”
“If there was abuse, he must have frightened her into saying or doing anything because my sister is the type of person who would leave at the first sign of trouble because she would protect her children,” she said. “But it’s a question we’ll never find the answer to.”
Stephanie said she was angry that Kenny killed her sister and tried to kill her niece, but she was extremely proud of Crystal and her nephew for their actions that night.
“My sister is a hero for protecting her children and allowing my nephew to step out of the house and call 911,” she said. “She did that. She saved their lives and my nephew saved his sister’s life because of it, and thank God the child was not affected.”
Stephanie said she will do her best to let her one-year-old niece know who her mother is.
“I will never let these children forget the love, strength and courage she had for them,” she said. “They always knew she loved them and put them first.”
Crystal Roure poses with her three children.
This article originally appeared in USA TODAY: Florida mother of three ‘became a hero’ after husband was killed at NFL game
