‘Back to the Future Part II’ and ‘Lethal Weapon’ Stuntwoman, Husband Killed in Ohio Shootout

A veteran stuntwoman and her husband have been killed in an apparent shooting in Greene County, Ohio on Friday. Cheryl Sanders and her husband, Robert Reed Sanders, were shot outside a prestigious home near the town Yellow Springs, per the Dayton Daily News. The name of the shooter hasn’t been revealed, though it’s being reported that he is the ex-husband of Cheryl Sanders.

Early accounts are claiming that Sanders and her husband came onto the man’s property carrying guns and using a camera system to monitor activities around the house. While a motive for the two has not been established, the shooter has also not been charged with a crime.

Greene County Sheriff Gene Fischer told the outlet that things started as Robert Sanders waited outside Cheryl Sander’s ex-husband’s home before he approached him in the driveway as he carried a gun. The ex-husband was also armed and shot fatally Robert Sanders.

At some point thereafter, Cheryl Sanders arrived at the home, prompting a gunfight between the two where she was eventually killed. The unidentified man had previously reported five years ago that he believed his ex-wife was planning to hire someone to have him killed.

Cheryl Sanders worked as a stuntwoman throughout the 1980s, doubling for Rene Russo in the Thor and Lethal Weapon franchises, as well as Kathleen Turner in V.I. Warshawski. Over her career, she’d taken hits for the likes of Sandra Bullock, Cameron Diaz, Charlize Theron, Jessica Alba, Sharon Stone, Brooke Shields, Nicole Kidman and Uma Thurman, just to name a few.

According to her online biography, it was a stunt for Back to the Future Part II in 1989 temporarily halted her career after a cable was released that caused her to hit concrete, breaking her face, right arm and hand.

While she pivoted to a more health-centric lifestyle in the years that followed, more recently her stuntwork appeared in films like Ocean’s 11, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Spy Kids 4. In 2000, she was the recipient of the 2000 Taurus World Stunt Award for Best Stunt Sequence for her work on the first Charlie’s Angels reboot, which is the stuntperson equivalent to The Oscars.

In the last few years, she’d made the transition into producing, including the 2016 documentary Holy Hell, which she executive produced alongside actor and musician Jared Leto.