$40,000 transfer from Sheriff’s deputy flagged 2 months before murder-suicide

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Editor’s Note: This story contains mentions of suicide.

A bank flagged a pending transfer of over $40,000 from sheriff’s office funds to the account of Deputy Isaac Eames two months before he shot his wife and killed his son and himself, according to records obtained by syracuse.com.

After the incident on Feb. 7, his wife, Karen Eames, was taken to hospital and was in fair condition as of Feb. 10. Troy Eames was a student at SUNY-ESF.

The county’s finance department received an email from a JPMorgan Chase Bank employee on Dec. 14, 2021, who questioned a pending electronic transfer of $41,372.15 into Isaac’s private account.

“I was contacted by our fraud team to verify that the following transaction was made by someone at the county,” the bank employee wrote in the email, obtained by syracuse.com through a Freedom of Information request.

Isaac Eames had been a deputy since 2010. He worked as a grant writer in the sheriff’s civil division, according to syracuse.com.

Sheriff Eugene Conway told syracuse.com that Isaac Eames was not under formal investigation before his death, but Conway asked the county comptroller’s office to audit accounts overseen by Eames.

Investigators have not determined whether the transfer was intentional or connected to the murder-suicide, Conway told syracuse.com.

This post will be updated with additional information.