Woman shot by police had faced bankruptcy

A woman shot and killed in a standoff with police Sunday had a bankruptcy case pending and had threatened suicide in the past, according to court records.

Lawrence Police on Tuesday continued an internal investigation into the death of Marsha Lynn Mace, 36, who was shot and killed by a police officer in an armed standoff at the Mobile Village, 110 N. Mich.

Key questions in Mace’s death remain unanswered, such as the kind of weapon used to shoot her, the location of the officer who shot her and how many shots total were fired – both by Mace and by police. Police also have not released the name of the officer who fired the shot, pending completion of an investigation that will be done by the department with help from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

“We don’t have any additional information to release at this time,” Sgt. Dan Ward said Tuesday.

Chief Ron Olin said in a Monday morning news conference that Mace had left a note behind and that he believed she was trying to get officers to kill her. Police have said that Mace emerged from trailer No. 107 at 1:23 p.m. holding a revolver and began firing at officers before she was shot and killed.

Mace, who had grown up in Lawrence and was well-known as a cocktail waitress, filed for bankruptcy in October 2005 in federal court. At the time, she wrote that she was working as a certified nurse aide at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

She had been ordered to appear Oct. 24 in bankruptcy court for a hearing on whether she should be held in contempt for failing to turn over $3,681 in assets.

Friends described Mace as outgoing but occasionally unpredictable.

“Everybody has problems. I wish it didn’t have to have happened like that,” said Heather Kirchhefer, a friend of Mace’s. “She never would have intentionally hurt anybody. She was just having a rough time and having a hard life.”

In November 2002, a former boyfriend, Anthony Gauna, filed a protection-from-abuse order against Mace, alleging that after being out partying, she had come home, taken out his shotgun and rifle and threatened to shoot herself.

He alleged that she “threatened me to keep one eye open when I sleep because something could happen to me,” according to court records.

She received probation in 1999 after being charged with criminal damage to property of another boyfriend.