The lives of Robert and Katelin Oakley unraveled over the past year.
They separated, then divorced. He couldn’t find a teaching job, had to stop being a stay-at-home dad and became a cabdriver. She left her job at a prestigious Denver law firm.
On Wednesday, they were found dead in their upscale Boulder home. The coroner said both were shot in the head; Robert had a shotgun wound, and Katelin had a gunshot wound.
Police said a 9mm handgun and a 12-gauge shotgun were found at the house.
The couple married in Boulder in 2001, the same year Katie Oakley was admitted to the Duke University School of Law in Durham, N.C.
While his wife was in school, Robert, who was 39 when he died, taught English at Chapel Hill High School.
The Oakleys appeared to be an ideal couple, said Jane Wettach, a Duke professor who hired Katie Oakley as a summer intern in a program that helped underprivileged children.
“She was a very positive person, fun to be around. She laughed a lot, always chatty,” Wettach said. “I liked Robert. He was a funny guy. He seemed very devoted to their young child. They seemed to have a very loving relationship.”
The couple had two children, both boys, born in 2003 and 2006. Authorities said the children were not home when their parents died.
After Katie Oakley graduated from Duke in 2004, she took a job in corporate finance and acquisition at Denver’s Davis Graham & Stubbs, said Chris Richardson, spokesman for the firm. “Katie was a fine young lawyer,” he said.
She also volunteered to teach a class to attorneys on how natural-resources companies earn money on U.S. and foreign-securities exchanges.
“For such a young attorney, it was very impressive,” said Dawn McKnight, assistant executive director of the Colorado Bar Association.
Robert Oakley was a stay-at-home dad who occasionally was a substitute teacher in the Boulder Valley School District.
From the outside, there were few indications the Oakleys were having marital difficulties, Jordan said. Then about a year ago, Katie Oakley, 30, moved to Golden.
“She left in a hurry. A van was just in the driveway, and she was just throwing in her things,” Jordan said.
Her husband filed for divorce March 28, 2008. He asked the court to order his wife to pay maintenance to him.
In May 2008, he applied for a language-arts position at Fairview High School in Boulder. The next month, he applied for a similar position at Boulder High School and for a third summer-school job, district spokesman Briggs Gamblin said. He didn’t get any of them.
After that, Robert started driving a cab, Jordan said.
Custody of the children seemed to be contentious, according to neighbors, with the hand-off of the children always occurring in public. Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said they exchanged the children on Wednesdays.
Police said they had one previous call to the house, on March 3, when Robert asked for a police presence because of a “disagreement after Katie came to the house on 23rd Street to retrieve some of her belongings.”
On March 20, Katie Oakley left her job at Davis Graham & Stubbs and was looking for another job, Richardson said.
“She was trying to figure out how to get more time with her kids,” he said.
A 911 call at 3 p.m. Wednesday summoned police to the Boulder home. While officers were on their way, a family member called and asked authorities to check on the couple. Police found the bodies.
The children are now with family members.
This story has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to reporting and editing errors, it gave the wrong location of Duke University School of Law. It is in Durham, N.C.
