Tuesday, December 9th 2014, 6:50 pm
In an exclusive interview, the former fiancee of a man who fired shots then killed himself at Rogers State University says there's more to the story of Tom Fees.
Sara Landers was at the university Friday night when her ex-fiance fired shots at her then killed himself.
Sara says Tom Fees never showed a violent or aggressive moment with her during their 18-month relationship. She still doesn't believe he would've hurt her. She knows how strange that sounds since he shot at her, but she says he began unraveling when they were forced to break off their engagement in June and his depression got much worse in the past two weeks.
She said the Tom Fees who made the news back in 2010 for getting arrested for pointing a gun at a bouncer in a bar and getting fired from the Tulsa Police department, is not the man she knew.
She says he got sober and changed his life, and that's when they met and fell in love.
"He loved my girls and they loved him. He felt like he had a family with us," said Sara Landers.
She says because he was not allowed to see his daughter because of his past issues, the judge in her previous divorce case ordered Fees couldn't be around her youngest either, so she says they were forced to call off their engagement.
Sara says he wasn't angry but was relentless in his efforts to get back together.
12/6/2014 Related Story: Former Tulsa Police Officer Identified As RSU Campus Shooter
"He consistently tried to convince me we could make it work," she said.
She says they had lunch two days before the shooting, and he was increasingly desperate to talk to her and to get back together. He even broke into her house the next day, threatening to kill himself.
Sara blocked his calls and texts, and that's when he showed up on the campus Friday night. She says even then, he looked sad, not angry.
"I turned to run away from the glass when I saw him pull the gun out," she said. "He shot through the glass twice. He's an expert marksman. I know if he wanted to kill me, he would've hit me."
She says he chased her out the building, but when she ran one way, he went the other way and that's when he shot and killed himself.
"Never did he ever want me hurt. He would hurt the world before he'd hurt me," she said.
Sara believes a new combination of prescription drugs and not getting a psych evaluation after his arrest, contributed to his decline, but she ultimately believes he really felt he had nothing to live for.
December 9th, 2014
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