The Clovis Independent (California)
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
March 14, 2008 Friday
Police rule shooting an accident: Rifle fires while being cleaned,
fatally injuring wife; husband shoots self
by Gabriel Alexander, The Clovis Independent, Calif.
Mar. 14–Felix and Janet Probandt were an unexpected pair.
He was an 82-year-old lawyer from Texas.
She was a seamstress from Iraq, who was 23 years his junior.
Both their love and death surprised everyone.
The husband and wife died March 4 in what police are calling an
accidental shooting and suicide.
At about 9:30 p.m., Clovis police received a 911 call from Felix,
according to a report from the Clovis Police Department. He and his
wife had been cleaning a rifle in their Clovis garage for a trip to
the shooting range. The gun was accidentally fired, and Janet was hit
in her upper body.
"My wife has been shot accidentally in the garage … " Felix told
the police dispatcher. "We were cleaning a gun, send somebody out
here please."
After calling for help for his wife, he opened the garage door for
emergency personnel and turned the gun on himself.
When police arrived, they found him dead and his wife still alive but
in critical condition.
"It was an accident that Felix shot me," she reportedly said before
dying at Community Regional Medical Center shortly after 11 p.m.
A week after their death, friends and family remembered the unlikely
pair during a funeral at New Hope Community Church March 12.
Janet was born to an Armenian family in Baghdad. After she married a
young man in Iraq, she moved to the United States.
"I’ll take you to America if you marry me," he had promised.
They later divorced, and Janet supported her two children as a
seamstress in Fresno.
That’s how she met Felix.
In 2006, he brought her a pair of pants that needed to be hemmed.
When he found out she was single, he asked her out on a date.
"No, you’re too old," she said.
Felix, who was known for being stubborn, returned with a new pair of
pants every week until she said yes. In 2007, they married.
"It’s a small world when a woman born in Baghdad finds a Texas born
and bred man," Tim Rolen said.
Rolen, who was the couple’s pastor at New Hope, asked them about
their first year of marriage shortly before they died. It was the
best year of their lives, they said.
Felix taught Janet how to golf and use a computer. Janet, who was
known for her cooking, prepared Felix midnight snacks and convinced
him to watch "Robin Hood: Men in Tights."
"They were in love with each other," Janet’s daughter Thanwa Alrawi
joked. "It was like a spring fling. It was disgusting. I’d sit across
the table from them during dinner and couldn’t finish."
Janet drew out Felix’s soft side, convincing him to mend a rocky
relationship with his son. In return, Felix showed her a world
outside Fresno and work. The international tax attorney took her
everywhere from Carmel to China.
"My mom had been in front of that sewing machine for 18 years in
Fresno," Alrawi said. "He took her [places]."
At first Felix’s daughter Lisa Britt wasn’t happy about her father
marrying the much-younger Janet. Felix’s previous wife Helen Probandt
had died just months before.
"Over the past year, I’ve seen how happy they were," Britt said at
the funeral. "Once I got past my ego, the whole family is grateful to
Janet for making my dad happy."
Felix’s children agreed to share his ashes with Janet. Half will rest
with Helen and the other half will be buried in the Clovis Cemetery
with his second love.
Survivors include Janet’s children Thanwa Alrawi and Ameer Alrawi,
and Felix’s children Don Probandt, John Probandt and Lisa Britt and
eight grandchildren.