Family's response to suspected shooter's suicide

By Shayla Reaves - bio | email
Posted by Alane Paulley - email

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - The family of the suspected shooter of two Jeffersonville Police officers spoke to WAVE 3 about their loved one and the events that led up to him taking his own life after a 10-hour standoff with police.

According to LMPD officials, the suspected shooter, Robert Datillo, ended a standoff on Friday night, around 8:45. Police said they were trying to use gas to bring Datillo out of the house when he emerged and shot himself.

On Saturday, Jeffersonville Police told WAVE 3 the weapon Datillo used to kill himself is consistent with the type and caliber used to shoot Corporal Dan Lawhorn and Patrolman Keith Broady.

As police continue their investigating into the officers' shooting, WAVE 3's Shayla Reaves sat down with one of the last men to see Robert Datillo before Thursday night's shootings, Kyle Beiber, once considered a suspect in the case.

Beiber and his cousin, Vincent Windell, were in police custody for most of Friday as Datillo held police at bay. He says the two were being held for the attempted murder of the two police officers at the Motel 6 in Clarksville.

"Me and Vincent was in that green Escort that they were looking for so bad, and my uncle was in his little car or whatever," said Beiber, describing what happened the night of Feb. 19 as he and Windell arranged a motel stay for Beiber's uncle, Robert Anthony Datillo.

"We followed him (Datillo), we got the room in Vincent's name so it couldn't be traced or we thought it couldn't be traced back to my uncle, so my uncle would have a nice spot to lay low." Beiber said.

Police say Robert Anthony Datillo was a fugitive wanted in Kentucky.

"When we first got the room or whatever we had to switch rooms because the first room was too cold," Beiber recalled. "We switched rooms, we sat in there for like five minutes and then left."

Beiber said he and Windell left Datillo at the motel and within minutes he received a call from another uncle.

"I left the hotel like maybe three minutes before the shooting," Beiber said. "There was no gut feeling or nothing, I just naturally left. And then, about 10 minutes later, my uncle called me and told me to come up. I called my mom. Everybody was just crying and saying two cops were shot."

Beiber says the next morning police arrived at his mother's home in Clarksville, Indiana, before 6 a.m.

"They had about two or three SWAT trucks pull up and told everybody in this whole little road to get out of their houses and we started walking down the road and they asked our name," Beiber said. "I told them my name and they locked me up. They said they were detaining me or whatever."

Beiber said detectives questioned him for more than 10 hours before his release.

"They were more on the lines of telling me that they know I was in the hotel when somebody shot the cops, they don't think I was the shooter, but I know who shot the cops," he said of the interrogation. "I told them I didn't know who shot the cops because I wasn't in the hotel room, but they just kept on not wanting to believe me."

Police said Beiber and his cousin, Windell, passed polygraph tests to prove their side of the story. They were released around 5 p.m. Feb. 20.

"I was incarcerated most of the time until I got out, and I went over to my little cousin's house and it came across the screen that the manhunt was over because the guy shot himself," Beiber said.

Beiber's mother, Angel Datillo, is Robert Datillo's sister.

The last conversation she had with him was during the standoff at his cousin's Highview home.

"When I talked to him yesterday, he said that he loved us all and he was trying to go out there - he was scared," "He said he loved us all. He didn't know what to do."

I asked family members about Robert Datillo's "state of mind" leading up to the officer shooting. We're told he'd been diagnosed with a mental condition during a recent prison sentence and his health continued to worsen in the last year-and-a-half.

Angel Datillo said her brother had never received treatment for his condition and recently began having a lot of seizures, some so severe he stopped breathing. She said one of the last occurred the night before he died.