Columbia, SC (WLTX) - The attempted murder and suicide of Leonard Bradley shocked many in the community who were close to the 62-year-old.
"Leonard has been a friend of mine for close to 40 years," says Richland County Coroner Gary Watts.
Bradley worked in law enforcement for four decades. He worked closely with both sheriff Leon Lott and Watts.
New 19 was told that Bradley began his career at the Columbia Police Department and worked for the Richland County Sheriff's office for some time, before moving to the Coroner's office.
Watts says that Bradley was going through some unspecified issues and just last week began 30 days of medical leave.
He says despite the health problems, there was no indication that something like this could happen.
"He had some issues going on, but he went on medical leave last week to work on these things, but it was never an issues of us thinking that he would do anything like this," says Watts. "There was some other stuff that was probably related to the overall situation, but it was certainly not to the level that we felt like would come to something like this."
Watts says he asked Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher to help in the case, since this one hits close to home.
"It's just one of those things where you deal with this day in and day out, but you never become numb to these types of things when it comes to family," says Watts. "This is a tough one. This is one where it's our family. We're dealing directly with our family."