A longtime confidante of Ann Mannix is speaking out about the marital troubles that shadowed the former San Francisco deputy police chief before her husband killed her, their daughter, and himself.
The family friend, who met Ann when both were five years old and living across the street in San Francisco’s Richmond District, told the California Post that Ann had confided in her about difficulties at home. “We talked about her relationship with her husband,” the friend said. “It wasn’t great.” The friend, who had known Ann for more than six decades, said she never saw the couple as estranged and was blindsided by the violence that followed.
Kevin Mannix, 68, shot Ann, 65, and their daughter Katie, 24, before turning the gun on himself at the family’s home on Strawberry Circle in Strawberry, an unincorporated community east of Mill Valley, on Sunday evening. Deputies were dispatched at 5:03 p.m. After a caller reported gunfire and had safely exited the residence. Officers arrived within minutes, secured the perimeter, and found three bodies inside. The Marin County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday night that detectives remained at the scene and that “there is no known threat to the community.”
The friend remembered Ann as a devoted mother who had been looking forward to a new chapter. “She was a wonderful mother. She had high hopes of being a grandmother soon,” she said. “You know, she was a friend to everybody.”
Their friendship spanned decades and distance, with phone conversations roughly twice a week and Ann’s most recent visit coming last summer. “We went to dinner. We have a pool, so we swam. We just hung out and just kind of spent time together,” the friend recalled.
She described Ann as super athletic, funny, and civic-minded from childhood forward. “She always did everything better than me growing up. She was funny, you know. She was very civic-minded,” she said. Katie, who was studying to become a nurse, shared her mother’s impulse to serve others. “Katie was fun, silly, the life of the party,” the friend added.
San Francisco Police Chief Derrick Lew informed department personnel of the deaths Sunday night. “Please keep their family in your prayers. BSU is available to all members who may need it during this difficult time,” he wrote, referencing the behavioral science unit.
Ann’s career shattered multiple barriers in the San Francisco Police Department. She became the first woman to join its SWAT team and later the first woman to lead it, then rose to deputy chief of the Field Operations Bureau in 2018 and took charge of the Special Operations Bureau in 2019. Kevin retired from the department in June 2018 after 27 years of service. In a farewell letter published by Taraval Station the following month, he wrote of carrying colleagues’ friendships forward. “I leave the SFPD, but I am taking your friendships with me forever,” he wrote.
The San Francisco Police Officers Association issued a statement mourning the family and acknowledging the weight of the loss across generations of officers. “The tragic loss of retired Deputy Chief Ann Mannix, her daughter Katie, and retired Sergeant Kevin Mannix in a suspected murder-suicide has left our entire SFPD family reeling,” the union said. “There are no words that can fully capture the depth of this tragedy, nor are there simple answers to the painful questions we are all asking.” The association praised Ann as a trailblazer and noted the burden borne by those who had served alongside Kevin during his nearly three decades on the force.
The friend struggled to reconcile the man she knew with the violence that ended three lives. “I can’t imagine having that happen or doing that. So it caught me by surprise,” she said. She returned again and again to the person Ann had been. “She was just a wonderful, wonderful person, and she will be deeply missed by many.”
