Video: Murder victim got emergency protection order against her estranged husband

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REDMOND, Wash. – New information has surfaced in the Redmond murder-suicide that claimed the life of a Microsoft employee.

Melissa and Joseph Batten's marriage was unraveling and she had gone to court looking for help.

Melissa was given a protection order against her husband, but all that didn't matter when Joseph showed up at her door earlier this week.

On Monday, their troubled relationship ended when Joseph Batten went to his estranged wife's Redmond apartment and unloaded his rage and his 9mm pistol, killing Melissa as she was heading to work, then turning the gun on himself.

Specifics aren't known, but apparently Melissa sensed trouble, because on July 21 a judge issued an emergency protection order against her husband.

Just seven days later she was gunned down.

Melissa Batten was a Harvard-educated lawyer, but she was drawn to the world of video games, taking a job with Microsoft. She was seen most recently in an X-Box video promotion for Microsoft that was shown at the company's Media Busness Summit.

Joseph Batten had a mathematics degree. He also had worked at Microsoft and most recently was a senior project manager at Wizards of the Coast.

They were a well-educated couple with good, high-tech jobs and a tragic example of how domestic violence crosses all barriers.

"The one thing that people have to understand is that a big house, a good job, a good education does not make you immune to domestic violence," said Barbara Langdon, Eastside Domestic Violence Program.

The national statistic is that one out of four women will be in a domestic violence relationship.

Group Health did a local study and in King County 44 percent of women identified themselves as victims of domestic violence.

A court order is just one step in protecting women from domestic violence, but they also need a safety plan and in many cases where the threat is imminent danger, going into hiding in a special shelter may be the only way to keep a woman and her children safe.

Unfortunately, because of funding issues, there are more people in danger than there are safe places to house them.

The Eastside Domestic Violence Program has a 24-hour crisis hotline: 800-827-8840.