A man accused of killing his fiancée and her two sons in Grand Rapids is now describing, in his own words, what he says happened in the hours before the shootings – and what he claims was happening inside his mind when it happened.
Target 8 investigator Ken Kolker of WOOD TV8 reported that he spoke by video chat for about 45 minutes with Charles Broomfield, who is being held in the Kent County Jail on three counts of first-degree premeditated murder and weapons charges.
What came out of that conversation is disturbing for two reasons at once: it includes Broomfield’s blunt admission that he shot the victims, and it includes his attempt to explain it through what he calls “multiple personalities,” a claim the prosecutor says he does not believe.
This is not a story where the facts are settled, the emotions are clean, and the public can feel comfortable making sense of it quickly. It’s a story where grief, anger, and disbelief all collide, and Kolker’s reporting makes that painfully clear.
Who Police Say Was Killed, And What Broomfield Told Target 8
Kolker reported that Broomfield, 44, has no criminal record and is accused of killing his fiancée, Jacqueline Neill, and her sons, 15-year-old Cameron Kilpatrick and 13-year-old Michael Kilpatrick, on the morning of January 27 in the home they shared.
In the interview, Kolker said Broomfield spoke about Neill with a kind of affection that is hard to square with what he is accused of doing.
“She’s one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Broomfield told Kolker, describing her as the best relationship he’d had.
Broomfield said they met eight years ago through Tinder, and Kolker reported that Broomfield said they had a son together five years ago. Kolker also reported that Neill had two older sons and two daughters.
The way Broomfield spoke about Neill sounded intimate and personal, right down to a nickname.
Kolker said Broomfield insisted he never called her Jacqueline and always called her “Bunny,” and in the interview he explained why: “because she was my bunny.”
That detail doesn’t soften anything. If anything, it makes the loss feel sharper, because it shows this wasn’t a distant relationship or a casual connection. This was a shared home, shared children, and a bond that – at least on the surface – looked like a family unit.
And then, according to police and prosecutors, it ended in gunfire.
“We Were Being Petty,” Then The Text Message Came
Kolker’s report focused heavily on the timeline Broomfield described, starting with the night before.
Broomfield told Kolker they had moved into the home on Worden Street SE only days earlier, and he said he remembered the night before the shooting like it was yesterday.
He described it as stressful, with family members still moving items into the home, and he said he and Neill were not getting along.
“We were just being petty towards each other,” Broomfield told Kolker.
That line is chilling in its normalness, because “petty” is the word people use for ordinary relationship friction – snippy comments, hurt feelings, stubborn pride. It’s not the language people use when they think they are on the edge of a cliff.
Then Kolker reported what Broomfield said happened the next morning.
Broomfield said he woke up early, before 6 a.m., to shovel snow.
And it was during that early morning window, he told Kolker, that Neill texted him that she wanted him gone.
“This ain’t going to work out,” Broomfield recalled, saying she told him he had to find somewhere else to go.
It’s a breakup message, basically, but with the added pressure of housing—an eviction from a shared space, a forced change in where he would live.
For many couples, that kind of message is the start of a separation. For families, it’s chaos, arguments, packing, tears, calls to friends, maybe a plan to cool off and talk later.
But in Kolker’s report, Broomfield describes it as the spark for something far darker.
“I Seen Red,” And An Admission That Leaves No Room To Look Away
Kolker reported that Broomfield said they argued inside the home after the text.
Then Broomfield described what he says happened inside him: “Something inside me just seen red,” he told Kolker, adding that he snapped, blacked out, and couldn’t think.
Kolker pressed him directly in the interview, walking through the sequence, and Broomfield answered in a way that sounded like an admission, not a denial.
Kolker asked him, essentially, if after “seeing red” he got his gun and shot his fiancée, and Broomfield responded, “Yes.”
Kolker then asked about the boys, and Broomfield said he “lost it,” couldn’t think, and didn’t fully process it until afterward.
He told Kolker that after it happened, he was “straight crying,” and he argued that a monster with no remorse wouldn’t cry, implying that his tears meant something about who he really is.
That part of his explanation is complicated in a way that can frustrate people.
Crying after a violent act does not undo the act, and it doesn’t automatically prove remorse, and it certainly doesn’t restore the lives that were taken. But it does show something important about how the accused is trying to frame the story: he wants to be seen as a person who did something terrible in a moment of collapse, not a person who is simply evil and empty.
The problem is that the criminal justice system can’t run on a person’s preferred self-image.
It runs on evidence, intent, actions, and what can be proven in court.
And Kolker included a key detail from police that makes the alleged crime even harder to bear: police said the boys were shot in their beds.
That isn’t just a legal fact. It’s the kind of detail that makes a community feel sick, because it suggests the kids were not in the middle of a chaotic confrontation. They were where children are supposed to be safest.
The 911 Call, The “Intruders” Story, And A Confession
Kolker reported that when police arrived that morning – responding to a 911 call at about 7:40 a.m. – Broomfield claimed two intruders had broken in.
According to Kolker’s report, Broomfield told police that one intruder killed his fiancée while the other killed the boys.
In the interview, Broomfield offered a strange explanation for that story.
He told Kolker that the intruder narrative came to him “after the fact,” after he snapped back into reality, like he was trying to fill in the hole in his own actions with something that sounded plausible.
But Kolker also reported what police say happened next: detectives found inconsistencies in that intruder story, and police say Broomfield confessed.
That shift – 911 call, blame intruders, inconsistencies, confession – matters because it’s often where prosecutors start building their argument about consciousness of guilt.
A person who is completely detached from reality might not craft a story at all. A person who understands what happened, even partially, may try to redirect blame.
The defense will likely argue mental illness, confusion, panic, or shock.
The prosecution will likely argue the intruder story shows awareness and calculation.
And this is where Kolker’s report becomes more than a timeline – it becomes a preview of the courtroom fight ahead.
The “Multiple Personalities” Claim And The Prosecutor’s Reaction
Kolker reported that Broomfield now claims it was one of his alternate personalities – one he calls “Charles” – that pulled the trigger.
While Charles is his legal name, Kolker said Broomfield told him friends call him “Charlay,” and he described his mind as crowded with different versions of himself.
“I am battling demons,” Broomfield said in the interview, listing names like “Chucky, Charlay, Charlie, Charles,” and saying they all had something going on while another part of him, “Chaz,” was just chilling.
In other words, he is presenting himself as fragmented – someone who believes the “real” him is not the person who committed the violence.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker directly pushed back on that.
Kolker reported that Becker has heard Broomfield talk about multiple personalities while in jail, but the prosecutor said he doesn’t buy it.
Becker also acknowledged what many viewers will suspect: that some people will think Broomfield is trying to set up an insanity defense.
Broomfield rejected that idea in the interview with Kolker, saying he wasn’t trying to set up anything, pointing again to his lack of criminal record, and insisting he had never hurt anyone before.
He also suggested he belongs in a psychiatric hospital, not a prison.
This is one of the hardest parts of cases like this, and it’s where my own thoughts get blunt.
Mental illness is real, and people can absolutely have serious psychological breakdowns, but “I have multiple personalities” is also the kind of claim that gets tested aggressively in court because it can be used as a shield, and courts don’t hand out shields just because someone says the right words.
If Broomfield’s mental health becomes a central issue, it will likely come down to evaluations, records, expert testimony, and whether the alleged behavior matches what clinicians see in genuine dissociative disorders versus what looks like a self-serving story.
And whatever the outcome, the victims remain gone, which is why these defenses – real or fake – often land like salt in an open wound for the families left behind.
Apologies, A Family’s Silence, And Another Family’s Statement
Kolker reported that he asked Broomfield what he would say to the victims’ family.
Broomfield’s response was that none of this was supposed to happen, and he said he was sorry.
Kolker also reported that the victims’ family declined to be interviewed.
That silence can speak volumes, because families in grief often don’t want to perform their pain for the public, especially when the details are already so awful and the legal process is still ahead.
Kolker’s reporting included a statement from Broomfield’s family as well, and it added another layer to the tragedy.
The Broomfield family said it was devastated by the deaths of Jacqueline Neill and her sons, and they expressed sorrow for the victims’ loved ones and the community.
They also said they had not been in contact with Charles Broomfield for over a decade, describing him as a biological relative but someone they had no communication with for years.
They said they do not recognize the person described in these reports as the person they once knew, and they asked the public to focus on the victims’ memory and the need for peace and healing.
It’s a reminder that when something like this happens, the damage spreads outward like a shockwave – victims’ families first, of course, but also friends, classmates, coworkers, neighbors, and even relatives of the accused who suddenly find themselves tied to a horror they didn’t cause and can’t control.
What Comes Next, And Why This Interview Matters
Kolker reported that a memorial service for Neill and her sons will be held at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Remembrance Church in Walker, and the family said the public is welcome.
Meanwhile, Broomfield remains jailed as the case moves forward.
The reason Kolker’s interview matters is not because it answers everything – it doesn’t.
It matters because it shows the direction the defense and prosecution may take.
On one side, you have a man admitting he shot the victims while insisting he “snapped,” “blacked out,” and that an alternate personality did it, with the defendant presenting himself as broken and in need of psychiatric care.
On the other side, you have a prosecutor, Chris Becker, making it clear he is not buying that explanation, and a set of facts police will likely use – like the intruder story and the later confession – to argue Broomfield was responsible in a way that meets the legal threshold for murder.
If there’s one thing that stands out in Kolker’s reporting, it’s how thin the line can be between everyday conflict and irreversible catastrophe when someone chooses violence as the answer.
A text message about moving out should not be a death sentence.
A morning argument should not end with children killed in their beds.
And yet, according to what Kolker reported Broomfield said – and what police allege happened – that’s exactly where this went.
The justice system will now do what it does, slowly and methodically, but the human truth underneath it is brutally simple: three lives ended, a family was shattered, and a community is left trying to understand how something so permanent could come out of something as ordinary as a breakup fight.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
