A Charlestown, Indiana, man has been charged with murdering his wife after allegedly calling police to report that she had shot herself in the head. The incident took place on August 4, according to court documents. Officers from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office and Charlestown Police Department responded to a home in the 10400 block of Charlestown New Market Road following the call.
The caller, identified as Stephen Gower, told police that his wife, Christina Gower, had used a gun to take her own life. When officers arrived, they said Gower asked them to “take me to jail” and “shoot me.” He told investigators the weapon used was a short-barreled AR-style rifle, which officers recovered at the scene.
Police found Christina Gower’s body lying on the floor, face up, with significant blood pooling around her head. She was positioned half inside the master bedroom and half in the hallway leading to the kitchen and living room. Detectives noted she had been shot in the head but did not observe visible burns or stippling on her skin—marks that would typically indicate a close-range or contact gunshot wound.
During questioning, Gower told detectives that on the morning of August 3, he had found messages on Christina’s phone suggesting she was speaking to other men and possibly having an affair. He said the couple had been drinking heavily throughout the evening leading up to the shooting, as per reports from WTHR.
According to Gower, the night involved escalating arguments and physical outbursts, including breaking a chair and a light fixture in a spare bedroom. He admitted to holding his wife’s wrist while they were on the kitchen floor “to hold her down,” but denied any further physical altercation.
Gower told police he retrieved a handgun from the bedroom during the dispute, placed it next to his head, and said he wanted to kill himself, claiming he had hoped his wife would pull the trigger. He later returned the handgun to the bedroom before retrieving the rifle.
He also said he placed the rifle to his own head, while Christina, whom he described as intoxicated, was crawling around the home. Gower told officers he asked to be arrested because he “believed it would be easier to go to jail than to explain the incident to his children and his wife’s family.”
An autopsy conducted by the medical examiner concluded that the gunshot was fired from several feet away or more, ruling out the possibility that Christina could have inflicted the wound on herself from that distance. Gower remains in custody at the Clark County Jail in Jeffersonville. He is scheduled to appear in court on August 11.
The case has left the community in shock, with investigators continuing to piece together the events of the night leading up to the fatal shooting. Authorities have not released additional details about the couple’s history or the suspected motive beyond what Gower disclosed during questioning.