Jeremy Perrien told investigators his wife, Shelby Perrien, pulled a handgun from the console of the vehicle he was driving and shot herself in the head, but investigators now accuse the 45-year-old Missouri man of killing her after finding a hidden video on her phone that allegedly showed him attacking her just weeks before her death.
Shelby was pronounced dead at a hospital on June 29, 2025, after the incident was first reported as a possible self-inflicted gunshot wound. Perrien initially told investigators that he and Shelby had been at a bar, that he wanted to leave while she did not, and that they argued before getting into the vehicle. He said the argument did not become physical.
He later said Shelby began “drunk talking” while they were in the vehicle and that he ignored her because he could not understand what she was saying. According to court documents, he claimed she then said, “I’m sorry that I’m a piece of [s—],” before shooting herself. The case took a different turn when an investigator examining Shelby’s phone found a hidden video recorded in May 2025, about a month before she died.
Court documents say the video allegedly showed Perrien hitting Shelby in the face, choking her, punching her several times and threatening to kill her. At one point, he allegedly punched her in the rib cage seven times before throwing her onto the floor beside the bed. Investigators also accuse Perrien of repeatedly threatening Shelby, physically assaulting her, threatening to assault their child, telling her to kill herself and saying he would kill her.
He is also accused of choking her more than a month before her death. Perrien, who had served as an assistant fire chief, assistant coroner and reserve sheriff’s deputy, was arrested Friday and charged with second-degree murder, harassment, domestic assault and tampering with physical evidence.
Because of the personal and professional relationships involved, the Scott County Sheriff’s Office turned the investigation over to the Missouri State Highway Patrol Division of Drug and Crime Control to keep it independent and free from any actual or perceived conflict of interest.
The hidden video, the earlier alleged threats and the account Perrien gave investigators now sit at the center of a case that began with a reported suicide and led to a murder charge. Shelby Perrien’s death remains the loss at the heart of the case, and the details in the court documents leave the circumstances of what happened inside that vehicle under intense scrutiny. May Shelby Perrien rest in peace.
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