Shawn Jemtegaard: Father-of-six and sole provider killed in 'road rage shooting' in front of his son, 13
LACEY, WASHINGTON: A man identified as Shawn Jemtegaard who was shot and killed in a road rage incident in Lacey, Washington, has left behind his wife and six children, including a Berkeley college football star son. Jemtegaard, 42, was reportedly cut off by pizza delivery driver Aaron Patrick Costello, 48, in traffic when the two got into a verbal and physical altercation.
Costello pulled out a pistol and fatally shot Jemtegaard in front of his 13-year-old son, who witnessed the incident. Dylan Jemtegaard, a mechanical engineering student and California Golden Bears football player at the University of California, Berkeley, is Shawn's son.
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'I am a single mother now of six children'
"I am a single mother now of six children," Chelsea Jemtegaard, Shawn's wife, said during a bond hearing for Costello as reported by the Daily Mail. Costello was arrested and held on a $500,000 bail. He is claiming self-defense, saying Shawn pushed him before the shooting.
Witnesses saw Jemtegaard get into a verbal altercation which turned physical. Costello admitted to pulling out a pistol and fatally wounding the father of six.
Shawn started his day at 6 am and finished up at around 6 or 7 pm. He has worked in construction his entire adult life, most recently serving as a project manager for a sheet metal business, according to Dylan. Later in life, he worked his way up to management, but in his early years, he did blue-collar work and handled hammers.
Dylan now feels an increased responsibility to provide for the family
“He’s always been hands-on, working his rear end off to put dinner on the table,” Dylan said. Andrew West, whose sister Chelsea was Shawn's wife, said, “Whatever he needed to do to keep those kids involved,” KRON 4 reported.
With the death of his father, Dylan now feels an increased responsibility to provide for the family. “It just makes me feel like I’m in a position that I need to continue to provide for my family… to be the most successful that they can be,” Dylan said before adding "Having five younger siblings, they need a role model that can show them the ropes and how to do things right and ultimately live a successful life.”
The Jemtegaard family has established a GoFundMe account, with a $250,000 target to meet the family's "multi-year needs" and "daily living expenses" as Shawn was the only source of income for the eight-person household. Five of Shawn and Chelsea's six children, who range in age from three to thirteen, are living at home and "loved their father dearly," West wrote on the fundraising platform.
His youngest son even wished for a phone to talk to their dad in heaven saying, “Nana, wouldn’t it be cool if I had a special phone where I could call my Dad in heaven and say hi and see how he is doing?”
