In November, a guy named Curtis Harris, known to his friends as "Keno," grabbed his estranged wife, Monica Thomas-Harris, took her to a hotel and handcuffed her to the furniture. Somehow, they worked it out. A couple days later, he showed up to at her job, got her into his car and bound her with duct tape. Then he threatened her with a stun gun.

She took him to court, he got arrested and copped a plea: 16 months in the pen. Before he reported for his sentence, a judge let Keno out on his own recognizance on Dec. 21 to take care of his unfinished business. Tragically, that unfinished business included killing his wife. He allegedly shot her in Whittier on Sunday, then killed himself.

According to the Times and Whittier Daily News, there were a lot of irregularities in the deal. The lead deputy DA was on vacation, so Deputy Dist. Atty. Samer Hathout sat in. The case judge was out, so Judge Tia Fisher approved the deal. She heard 43 other cases that day, court spokesman Alan Parachini told the Times, but the Harris release was a "carefully negotiated plea agreement."

Careful or not, the LA County Probation Department was not in favor of letting Keno walk, the Whittier Daily News/Daily Bulletin reports. It issued a report noting his prior criminal history, including discharging a firearm, a drug charge and Thomas-Harris' restraining order against him.

"The report was based on his criminal history and other factors," spokeswoman Kerri Webb told the paper.

Jackie Harris, Keno's mom told the Whittier DN that her son had been trying to work things out with the wife he allegedly murdered.

"He was a good man and he just snapped," the Chino woman told the paper. "That's the only thing it could have been."

Now, DA Steve Cooley's office is looking into what happened and checking to see if its staff screwed up in OK-ing the released. Given the interest in this, it's likely there will be plenty of fingers pointed and not-my-faults. Given the vast number of cases the churn through the system every day, those not-my-faults may be perfectly legitimate. But a woman's dead and plenty of people will say they saw it coming. However it's resolved, the case will have a tragic end.

For more, here's the Times' full take, as well as an earlier post on The Homicide Report. The Whittier DN story's here.