UES shooter Kathleen Leigh had a note in her pocket when she killed her ex-daughter-in-law herself: sources
The terminally ill, retired parole officer who shot her ex-daughter-in-law on the Upper East Side — and then killed herself — had a mysterious note in her pocket at the time of her death, sources told The Post.
The note read “For the police,” the source said.
It was found in Kathleen Leigh’s pants after she killed her ex-daughter-in-law Marisa Galloway on East 88th Street on Friday morning – the murder was triggered, according to police, by a bitter custody battle over Leigh’s granddaughter.
The contents of the note were not immediately clear.
Galloway, 45, a mother of two, had just placed her 1-year-old daughter in the back seat of a parked white Honda Civic, apparently during a custody handover, when Leigh shot her in the head and back, cops said.
Leigh then took her own life. The baby was unharmed in the shooting.
The special education teacher was involved in a custody battle over the four-year-old girl she had with Leigh’s son.
Leigh, a 65-year-old retired probation officer from Cook County, Illinois, was battling terminal cancer and lived with her son on East 79th Street during her treatment.
Leigh’s daughter declined to comment Saturday when contacted by The Post.
The grandmother frequently complained to neighbors that Galloway was mistreating the four-year-old girl – a picture that did not fit the description neighbors gave the younger woman of a caring, loving mother.
“She was so wonderful and she loved her children,” a resident of the East 86th Street apartment building in Galloway told The Post, tears streaming down her face.
Between July and November 2021, police took five reports of domestic incidents involving Galloway and her ex. The father complained in several reports that his daughter came home with bruises, sources said.
In two cases, complaints were made to the child and youth authority, which later turned out to be unfounded, the sources said.
After their separation, the two shared custody, with the father having custody from Friday to Monday while Galloway lived with the daughter the rest of the week, the sources said.
Leigh shot Galloway once, shortly after she loaded her younger daughter and a stroller into the car, fired another shot into her back while Galloway lay on the ground – and then shot himself in the head, said NYPD Criminal Investigation Chief Joseph Kenny, who police observed on surveillance video.
Galloway was found bloodied but still breathing, slumped near the back of the car while Leigh lay on the ground nearby, witnesses and sources said. Two handguns were seized.
Leigh was pronounced dead at the scene. Galloway was taken to Weill Cornell Medical Center, where doctors pronounced her dead on arrival, Kenny said.
Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts, Dean Balsamini and Georgia Worrell
