BEVINSVILLE – Investigating officers are now looking for past disputes between David Slone, 51, and his ex-wife, Tonja Slone, 44, that might somehow bring to light why events Monday took place.

Slone shot and killed his ex-wife Monday evening as she was leaving a beauty shop at Bevinsville and later turned a gun on himself just after police arrived to arrest him for the fatal shooting.

According to police, Slone arrived at the beauty shop just as his estranged ex-wife was leaving the establishment. Kentucky State Police officers said that, according to eyewitnesses, David Slone pulled into the shop’s parking lot as Tonja Slone got into her van. He then exited his vehicle and shot her several times with a handgun.

Police say once that gun was empty, Slone left only to return moments later with a rifle to shoot her again.

“He left after he shot her the second time and went home,” said Sgt. Delmas Johnson with the Floyd County Sheriff’s Department, who was called to the scene Monday. “When he came out after the police got there he had a gun in his hand and was raising it up.”

Johnson said many of the officers thought Slone might be preparing to fire on them, but that was not the case.

“He just kept raising the gun and then shot himself in the head,” said Johnson. “He was saying he wasn’t going back.”

Slone had spent time in federal and state prison, police said.

Mike Goble, KSP information officer for Post 9 in Pikeville, said the beautician tried to help Tonja Slone at the scene.

“She was trying to talk to him, to get him to stop shooting at her and he refused,” Goble said. “It’s evident without a doubt that he intended for her to die.”

As for the estranged couple’s past, KSP Det. B.J. Caudill said that their past history was currently being looked into Tuesday in terms of a possible motive. Friends, interviewed after the murder-suicide took place, said the two had been arguing for several weeks.