MATHEWS – Mathews County authorities are investigating their first homicide in seven years.

Sheriff Danny Howlett says Matthew Ryan Roberts, 21, was shot and killed around 1:15 a.m. Tuesday in a yard on John Clayton Memorial Highway.

Video: Mathews man charged with murder

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Authorities say they're arrested his girlfriend's father, Leatrice Croswell.

Howlett says Roberts assaulted the 61-year old Croswell, who went inside and grabbed a handgun, then returned to the front yard and shot Roberts once.

Roberts’ girifriend was at the scene but not hurt.

Howlett says the couple has "a long history of domestic violence."

According to the Mathews-Gloucester Gazette-Journal,  sheriff’s investigators found the victim at a travel trailer next to a house on Route 14.  Crime scene tape was put up around the area.

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