A jealous husband, his wife seeing another man, it is an ages-old recipe for confrontation. Add in a history of mental illness and drug use and a weapon, and the possibility of violence escalates.
That was the scenario on the morning of Sept. 22 when Todd T. Houck, 36, of Spotsylvania, drove to the Relax Inn, a small, one-story motel on Route 301 just northeast of Bowling Green, and entered Room 4.
There he encountered his estranged wife, Cheri Houck, 34, and her new boyfriend, Jeremy Gift, 36, of Stafford.
Motel neighbors reported to the media that Gift, who was originally from Pennsylvania, was a tree trimmer and normally was on the road by 5:30 a.m. Houck may have expected to find his wife there alone when he arrived at about 8 a.m. Instead, he found the two lovers.
The Caroline County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call about an incident at the motel at 8:11 a.m. and units were already on their way to 18000 A.P. Hill Boulevard (Route 301) when the dispatcher heard gunshots on the phone line, according to Sheriff Tony Lippa.
Lt. Travis Nutter was in one of the units dispatched to the motel and arrived on the scene in time to see a black Mercury Mountaineer roar out of the parking lot and head south. He saw a man and a woman in the SUV, Lippa said.
Nutter initiated a pursuit that led Caroline deputies down routes 301 and 207, past Caroline High School and Middle School, through the busy Carmel Church business section and onto Interstate 95 North, where units from the Virginia State Police joined in the chase.
Back at the motel, investigators discovered the body of Gift, who was already dead from multiple gunshot wounds. At some point, police concluded that Houck, who was still armed, had abducted his estranged wife. Officers treated the hostage situation with extreme caution.
Multiple police units caught up to Houck, who was traveling at a high rate of speed, and their drivers were able to box in Houck’s large SUV at about 8:38 a.m.
At I-95’s mile marker 124 in Spotsylvania County, Houck attempted to ram one of the police cruisers and his SUV came to a halt sideways across two lanes of the busy three-lane highway, according to VSP spokeswoman Corinne Geller.
As police approached the stopped vehicle with caution, they heard a single shot from within, Geller reported at a press conference held with Lippa in Bowling Green hours after the multiple incidents. Geller stressed that no officers fired their weapons.
Inside the SUV, police found Cheri Houck, who was traumatized, but otherwise unharmed. They also found Todd Houck, who it is believed died of a self-inflicted gunshot. Houck’s body was taken to the state Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy.
The chase covered just over 32 miles and Houck averaged about 83 miles per hour during the pursuit, which occurred in rush hour traffic and passed through several busy intersections, according to the CP’s calculations.
Houck was identified by police as the son of former State Sen. Edd Houck of Spotsylvania. The elder Houck represented Spotsylvania and surrounding counties in the Virginia Senate from 1984-2012.
Edd and Dana Houck were caring for their son’s two children at the time of the incident. Their daughter, Greta, died of multiple sclerosis in 2012 at age 31.
Todd Houck had a criminal history and was involved in a 1999 incident in which he barricaded himself in his apartment in Richmond for 12 hours after being approached by officers trying to serve him with a warrant.
He had been charged with various offenses over the years, including drug charges and an incident in 1998 involving a 14-year-old girl. A sodomy charge was reduced to a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. In 2007, he pleaded guilty to grand larceny and attempting to obtain morphine after police said he broke into a former girlfriend’s house.
Edd Houck publicly acknowledged his son’s troubles on at least one occasion, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. In 1999, after the police standoff, he issued a statement saying, “We thank God no one was hurt or injured… In view of our son’s long history of mental illness, it is our hope and wish that appropriate treatment can now begin.”
Three weeks before the shooting at the Relax Inn, the younger Houck had been released from the Rappahannock Regional Jail after posting bond. He faced a felony charge from a May 2014 incident at an IHOP restaurant.
Expressions of sympathy for the family of Todd Houck, including one from U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, followed revelations of the apparent murder and suicide.
Gift was described to the media by those who knew him as friendly and down to earth.
Sheriff Lippa noted, “It’s a tragedy to all the families and we’ve got more victims–the family members.”
Lippa also praised all of the law officers involved for their handling of “a very dangerous situation. We are extremely thankful that no one else was injured.”
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