Police: Five Children, Father Dead in Washington State Murder-Suicide
Families living in a quiet mobile home park in Washington were left reeling Sunday after one of their neighbors apparently shot to death five of his children at their home and then killed himself miles away.
"How could something like this happen?" asked Mary Ripplinger, whose kids were playmates of the slain children. "Everyone's asking: Why did he do it? It's not right."
Police were called after a relative visiting the family's trailer at the Deer Run mobile home park Saturday couldn't get anyone to answer the door but through a window glimpsed a child lying motionless on a bed. Click here for photos.
Earlier Saturday, police found the father dead in his still-running car near the Muckleshoot Casino in Auburn, about 30 miles south of Seattle. The father had apparently killed himself with a rifle,.The mother's aunt, Penny Flansburg, identified the couple as Angela and James Harrison and the children as Maxine, Samantha, Heather, Jamie and James. The father worked as a diesel mechanic, and the mother works at Wal-Mart, Flansburg said.
Ryan Peden, a classmate of the eldest daughter, who was 16, said she told him Friday night that her parents had gotten into a fight and her mother had left. The father followed the mother and tried to get her to return, said Peden, 16. Carolyn and Raymond Bader, a former neighbor of the family, told The Seattle Times they often heard the father yelling at the children. The Baders said they called the sheriff's department and Child Protective Services several times with their concerns. Click here to read more from Q13FOX.com.
This might be the one of the saddest stories I have heard in a long time. How could a father be so upset that he would do something this terrible to his very own children? Things like this are happen much too often in our society today. I am sure there are issues that were happening in the family that we do not know about and might not ever know about, but think about the mother who is still alive. She will live in grief for the remainder of her life. She lost her whole entire family in one day while she was at work. I don’t know how anyone can hurt someone this bad. I know those children did not do anything bad enough that they deserved what their very own father did to them. I hope that families that are having problems can look at this and learn from it. Know that there is help out there and that nothing is bad enough that something like this needs to take place. We should all keep this family in our thoughts and prayers as they have a long road ahead of them.
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i agree that this is a terrible event that could have probably been avoided in several ways. I am not sure if the father was abusive, if he was the mother should have gotten a restraining order. I think that if the sheriffs office and child services were contacted many times than i think there should have been some evaluation done of the family. We will see in the next few days what is going to happen and what news breaks out, but i am guessing the family is going to blame someone other than the father.
ReplyDeleteI never understood the reason behind suicide. I do understand murder, but I still dont understand why any one would ever want to do either. People are frustrated with the way the economy is and slump down to feel that killing is the easy way out. The economy is not just bad for one person. I think every on is suffering from it. If there is people who are not effected by the way the economy is then consider them lucky, but I do know its tough and just dont think that murdering your family or taking your own life is ever the right answer to the problem.
ReplyDeleteThis is just too sad. The poor mother lost everything in just a few minutes. It is too bad that Social Services didn't take more action with the complaints they received.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much abuse the children and mother took before all of this happened? It is hard to understand how anyone could do something this terrible to their own family.
Once again, though, it made headlines and there will be more copycat incidents like this. Disturbed people see these headlines and think this is the only solution so they do the same thing. Maybe if newspapers headlined solutions and places to get help it would get some attention and decrease these incidents? Probably not, because very few would read this type of news.
I think Kim used the right descriptor when she labeled him 'disturbed.' He was very obviously deeply disturbed. Since there is no background information (one thing I HATE about headline news--just the most scintillating details and no explanation), we just have to imagine all the whys. If he was severely depressed, which is possible if he was having marriage problems, he may have had the warped reasoning that, I can't go on, but I can't abandon my kids, so we all have to go.
ReplyDeleteIf he was just hateful, he may have been using this to punish his wife, and then couldn't live with what he did. We really don't know since he's dead now.
To me, it just reinforces the sad reality of Matthew 24:12 and 2 Timothy 3:3 that people would lose that natural love we expect family to have for one another because conditions around them are too much to deal with.