The husband of former Miss America contestant Christine Kozlowski Hand was shot dead in Alabama last week – just two days after the couple announced they were expecting a second child, according to reports.
Tommy Hand, 37, was fatally shot around 4:30 p.m. Saturday in Montgomery and was soon pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.
What prompted the shooting was not immediately clear.
A suspect, identified as Jeremiah Walker, 17, was later arrested and charged with capital murder, according to Montgomery police.
The shooting occurred in front of the couple’s son Roman, according to The Sun.
Christine, 33 – who represented Mississippi at the 2009 pageant in Las Vegas after winning the state title in 2008 – and Tommy Hand, already parents of a 2-year-old boy, had just announced on social media that they were expecting another child in August.
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“Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers during this time of the passing of my husband Tommy Hand. I feel the love and support from everyone,” Christine wrote Sunday on Facebook.
Dean St. Pierre, who met Tommy through bodybuilding a decade ago, said that Tommy had “turned his life over to God” recently and was a dependable friend.
“He’s going to give you his honest opinion on what he thought, right? And most of the time it was right and maybe not what you wanted to hear,” St. Pierre told Fox News Digital. “He would be straight up with you.”
Derek Arnoult, who was friends with Tommy, said the tragedy was “hard to understand.”
“This is a hard hit but this man preached the word [with] his heart and soul,” Arnoult told Fox News Digital. “It was an honor to know him. He helped me through dark times and good times. He definitely was heaven sent.”
The block in Montgomery, Alabama, where Thomas Hand was shot and killed.
(Google Maps)
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Tommy was a former competitive bodybuilder who won a Mr. New Orleans title and ran a nutrition company.
“I started this company to be able to use my own products so that I am sure of what I am putting into my body,” he wrote in Hand Nutrition’s mission statement. “Train hard and live healthy.”
At the Miss America pageant in 2009, Christine Hand won the swimsuit competition, according to a news release by her college at the time, the University of Southern Mississippi.
Like her husband, she also runs a nutrition company called MSMS Nutrition.
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On Sunday, Christine thanked the “loyal and cherished customers” of her husband’s company, saying that the company would relocate to her hometown of Biloxi, Mississippi.
“We ask that you stick with us as this will be our only means of support for our son and baby to be,” she wrote. “We need your support now more than ever.”
