Possible intended target in Ariz. murder spree: “I knew what the connection was"

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — An Arizona behavioral health counselor who may have been one of the intended targets of a man on a murder spree reflected Tuesday on the realization that she was connected to the killings in an interview with CBS affiliate KPHO. Police say suspect Dwight Jones targeted individuals with ties to his bitter 2010 divorce and custody battle. 

Jones is accused of murdering six people in the span of 72 hours this past weekend.

Investigators say Jones shot and killed a well-known forensic psychiatrist and two paralegals before the body of Marshall Levine was discovered early Saturday in an office space he shared with Karen Kolbe. Kolbe said investigators asked her about Jones on Sunday. 

The name was familiar to Kolbe because she counseled Jones' son in 2011. Jones was divorced in 2010 and his ex-wife was awarded custody of their son, who is now 21.

"As soon as they said (Jones' name), I knew," said Kolbe in the interview with KPHO. "I knew what the connection was."

A hunch from a retired detective helped lead police to Jones and link the victims, some of whom were connected to the divorce case, authorities said after the assailant killed himself inside a Scottsdale hotel Monday with officers closing in.  

Jones ranted in a series of YouTube videos posted in May about the judge, counselor and prominent forensic psychiatrist in the case. The psychiatrist, Steven Pitt, who also assisted in the JonBenét Ramsey mystery in Colorado, was called a "scumbag" by Jones in one of the videos.  Pitt, who testified that Jones had anxiety and mood disorders and symptoms of a paranoid personality, was killed Thursday.

Also killed were two paralegals who worked for the law office that represented Jones' wife, and Levine, a marriage-and-divorce counselor who was apparently killed in an attempt to target Kolbe.    

"Everybody knew what he was capable of, and yet he still got to see his son," Kolbe said, adding that she was called upon to testify about Jones in court.

"I was being brought in as a witness to the kind of effect that the dad and his behavior had on the son, and to speak to the trauma that the son had been through," Kolbe said.

While she never met Jones in person, she remembers a phone call or voicemail years ago in which Jones apparently demanded a meeting with her.

"I just remember a kind of threatening, bullying kind of demand, and I get that every once in a while when a parent feels like they're getting left out of the process," Kolbe said. "In this case knowing what I'd been told and what I'd seen about him, I didn't want to have contact with him. I didn't think it was safe."

Kolbe said she had no recent contact with Jones.

"I'm beyond heartsick that he found Marshall here and I wasn't here, and that's horrible," says Kolbe. "My heart's broken for everybody, for Marshall and his fiancée and the families of all the other people who were shot."