A Superior Court judge for Orange County, California, was arrested late Thursday on suspicion of murder after police found his wife dead in their home.
Jeffrey Ferguson, 72, was taken into custody by Anaheim police after authorities forced themselves into his home without incident and found that 65-year-old Sheryl Ferguson had been shot at least once, The Los Angeles Times reported. Ferguson’s wife was pronounced dead at the scene, and officers arrested Ferguson at the Anaheim Hills home. He was booked into an Orange County jail on $1 million bail.
Law enforcement sources told the Times that a son of the couple was at the home at the time of the shooting. The son, who is in his 20s, was questioned by police after the shooting, KTLA reported. A neighbor of the Fergusons told the news outlet that the couple had lived there for over 20 years.
The judge’s colleagues were stunned when they heard about Ferguson’s arrest on suspicion of murder.
“Absolutely shocked. I had them sit on my couch. I would never have thought this for a minute,” one colleague said.
Ferguson was elected to the Superior Court of Orange County in June 2014 after he began his career as an Orange County Deputy District Attorney in 1983, according to his bio. Ten years after he started his career, Ferguson was promoted to Senior Deputy District Attorney and assigned to the Major Narcotics Enforcement Team.
Ferguson’s wife Sheryl worked for the Santa Barbara and Orange County Probation Departments before working for the American Funds Service Co., where she spent 20 years.
The judge was reprimanded in 2017 by California’s Commission on Judicial Performance for comments he made on Facebook about an election that included one of his fellow judges, according to the Times. During the 2016 election, Judge Scott Steiner was running for reelection against Karen Schatzle, a senior deputy district attorney for the county. According to the commission, Schatzle posted a comment on a Facebook page on April 26, 2016, writing, “Scott Steiner uses his office for sex and yet so many aren’t concerned, crazy politics!”
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Ferguson replied to the comment, posting, “Karen Shatzle has sex with defense lawyer whike [sic] shw [sic] is DA on his cases and nobody cares. Interesting politics.”
The commission ruled that Ferguson acted with “reckless disregard for the truth” because he could not provide any support for his accusation. The commission’s admonition of the judge didn’t affect his position, and he won re-election in 2020.