The Boulder County Coroner’s Office has identified the man who was found dead Tuesday in a house on Chestnut Drive in Longmont as Ralph Shnelvar, the chair of the Boulder County Libertarian Party.

His body was found after police were called to the Chestnut Drive on a possible report of domestic violence.

Shnelvar was distressed and refusing to get help, so he broke his wife’s phone when she tried to call 911, according to his daughter Sydney Martinez. Her sister called the police after receiving a concerning email from him, prompting the police response, Martinez said.

The incident was originally reported by police as a domestic disturbance, but Martinez said Shnelvar “was just struggling with something,” and that she wants people to remember “what a kind man he was.”

The calls prompted a large police response on the street for hours Tuesday. Longmont police and SWAT officers tried to speak with Shnelvar outside the home through a public address system, but Shnelvar would not leave the residence.

Eventually two police robots were sent inside the home and found Shnelvar, 68, dead.

The coroner’s office has finished the autopsy and is investigating the cause and manner of his death. Shnelvar was the only person in the home at the time of the incident.

Earlier on Tuesday, Shnelvar sent an email to those who frequent the Libertarian lunches he organized, announcing his intentions. In it, he said that “by the time you read this I, Ralph Shnelvar, will be dead.”

The Libertarian Party on Wednesday posted about his death on its Facebook page, saying that Shnelvar “took his life yesterday in angst.”

“Ralph worked to advance liberty and freedom (in) Boulder County literally every week and for many years with his Thursday Libertarian Party of Boulder County lunches. He maintained this lunch as a reliable place for civil dialogue on the interaction of Libertarian ideas and the real world,” party representatives wrote in an emailed statement. “Ralph exposed many thousands to Libertarian ideals and brought in guest speakers that often challenged conventional Libertarian thinking. He will be sorely missed and his sudden death came as a complete surprise to everyone in our circle of Liberty. May God bring him peace and liberty in the afterlife.”

The Facebook post included remarks from a number of Libertarian Party members.

“Ralph was my friend and I loved him. He was always kind to me and gracious. He worked (tirelessly) to make a more free country and he was an example to me of dedication,” wrote Thomas Adam Peppers.

Others wrote about his dedication to libertarian ideals and free elections, and Lance Cayko said his “absence will be visible for an undetermined time to come.”

Shnelvar in a 2016 interview told the Times-Call he was a software developer and moved to Longmont from Boulder because of the “heavy hand of government there.”

Shnelvar ran for Boulder County clerk and recorder in 2014 and, in an interview with the Daily Camera, said he had been the chair of Libertarian Party of Boulder County since 2011. In the interview, he said he was a software engineer and held two software patents.

In 2012, Shnelvar sued then-Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall. In the suit, he alleged she violated state law by denying authorized election watchers’ abilities to meaningfully observe the handling of mail-in absentee ballots and ballots sent in by active duty military members and people living overseas.

Shnelvar and the clerk and recorder’s office settled the matter ahead of a scheduled court hearing.

He said he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering degree from Columbia University in 1972.

Madeline St. Amour: 303-684-5212, mstamour@prairiemountainmedia.com