Moshiri: 'I wasn't fearing for my safety'

In the hours before her husband went on a shooting spree, killing his daughter and stepson and taking his own life, Katherine Moshiri did not fear for her safety or that of her children as she planned how she was going to leave him.

The 35-year-old Jackson woman described calls to made to local shelters Dec. 3 as "gathering information," with the goal of obtaining temporary custody of her two daughters, and they provided her with a list of options, she said in a phone interview Wednesday

A friend said previously that an area shelter turned her away because their communal living facility prevented them from allowing boys over the age of 13, and Moshiri's son had been 16.

Moshiri said her friend had been misinformed and that the shelter offered her plenty of other choices.

"I wasn't fearing for my safety. I'm not an abused person. My children were not abused," she said. "He'd never so much as hurt our dog."

Though their marriage may have had its share of problems, Mir Shahin Moshiri had been a loving father, she said. However, she had reason to fear that Mir Shahin Moshiri might try to take her daughters out of the country with him, she said.

He told her she wouldn't live to see another day if she tried to take Madison, 4, and Meghan, 2, away from him, but she didn't really take the threat seriously at the time, she said.

Read more in Thursday's Southeast Missourian.