Kayla McGovern speaks about her recovery from addiction in a video obtained by WXIX-TV.
Friends and relatives of of a woman whose body turned up in a Harrison, Ohio home on Monday say she was five months pregnant when she died.
The woman, Kayla McGovern, 29, and her “on-again, off-again” partner Michael Reece, 42, were both found dead in the 300 block of War Admiral Drive in the community near the Indiana border about half an hour west-northwest of downtown Cincinnati, several local news organizations reported. The Hamilton County, Ohio Sheriff’s Office said officers came across the bodies during a welfare check on the two decedents. That office has described the case as a suspected murder-suicide, according to those multiple reports, but deputies haven’t said who was the killer or who was the victim. It is also officially unclear precisely how the two died.
Loved ones who spoke to Cincinnati FOX affiliate WXIX said McGovern was “very loving” and did not believe she was the attacker.
But Reece, they said, was another story.
“I don’t feel like, in a sense, that he was good for her at all,” said Sierra Powers, McGovern’s cousin, to WXIX.
Friend Patricia Grimsley told the FOX affiliate that both Reece and McGovern had battled addiction. However, Grimsley said McGovern had been sober for some time and noted that McGovern even recorded a video about her road to recovery.
“I never got to experience what life really was until I have gotten clean,” McGovern said in a recording shared with WXIX. “My goal for me in the rest of my life is to just have normal things, have a normal life with somebody, and enjoy spending time with my family.”
Grimsley said friends were “all really proud of how far” McGovern had come and bemoaned the of the loss of life in the face of conquered adversity.
“She’s worked so hard to get her life back on track, and it’s just — it’s not fair that it got taken from her,” Grimsley said of the situation.
McGovern had a 4-year-old son who is now left to face life without his mother. She also leaves behind a brother, Jon Spurlock, who WXIX reported “was shot in the head in 2018 and remains unresponsive to this day.”
The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office confirmed for Law&Crime on Thursday that the case involved a “suspected murder-suicide” but said it was not releasing information “regarding the exact manner of death, nor the victim or perpetrator.”
“We are aware that there are storylines that exist, but we can’t confirm at this time,” the sheriff’s office wrote in a brief email to Law&Crime. The message was in response to a few questions about the case and for an update on the investigation.