Strange case but true

Gene L

About 15 years ago, we worked a murder suicide of an adult male and his two kids, one about 3 and the other about five.  The act was committed with an old Remington (I think) square-back shotgun.  A sad story, but what made this one especially strange is as follows....

Imagine an upside L shape, which was the design of the interior of the house. The wife was in the upper short horizontal leg of the L.  She was asleep when the murder happened, but didn't wake up.  The murder occurred at the corner of the L on the vertical leg.  The step-daughter, a young teen or perhaps a pre-teen, was down the next room...all three rooms either attached or next door.

Everyone was asleep and no one heard a thing.  Three shots in a closed house, and no one woke up. The murder/suicide was discovered a period of time later by the wife.  I can't remember how long, maybe an hour.  She said she heard something she thought was the garage door slamming with her husband going to work and went back to sleep.

This seems impossible to believe, but it happened just like that.  CSI from the GBI examined the evidence which confirms this.  The young kids were in the same room in different beds. The three year old was shot first, in his sleep, then the five year old who apparently woke up and moved his head sideways, then the man, sitting in a chair and leaning forward into the gun, which was placed on the floor. I think he needed a solid rest for the gun, either because of the mechanics of recoil or so he could reach the trigger.  The kids were shot in the head.

As suspicious and unlikely as this sounds, it happened just like I reported.  There is truth and fiction, but nothing is so strange that it couldn't be true.

Wambli Ska

Gene if this was not straight from you I’d find it REALLY hard to believe.  That’s just bizarre that folks did not just jump out of their skins with 3 shotgun blasts going off inside their own house.  Crazy!

Gene L

They didn't wake up, much less jump out of their skins.  It was a sad day.

Wambli Ska

I sometimes wonder what on Earth could drive a person to do this.  The only answer I can come up with is mental illness.

earlyagain

Crazy, but believable. I've seen people sleep when they shouldn't have been able to, and awaken unaccountably.

One of the Crime/Fiction authors I read is Michael Connelly. His non-fiction account of his time as a crime news reporter details his observations of homicide detectives as they take in crime scenes and related information. For me it was a small window into how those people can be deeply affected by what they're seeing.

Spk

Some people sleep like the dead or have learned to tune things out. I would suspect auditory exclusion was involved.

One lesson has been our understanding that the conscious brain is a horrible multi-tasker. (NOTE: The subconscious brain, on the other hand, is a wonderful multi-tasker.) Unfortunately, we see and hear with our conscious brains. This means the visual cortex and the audible cortex have to share resources or, in some cases, take turns processing information...

I've seen people sleep on construction sites with all kinds of noise going on. I used to be a heavy sleeper when I was young but the military beat that out of me. Today, the slightest noise will often wake me up. So I could imagine this happening but not in my house.

Tragic story. I can't even begin to understand the depths of despair people must feel inside to do something like that. Very sad.

Bigslug

Interior walls can do weird things to mitigate gun blasts.  What's deafening in the immediate room can sound like a cardboard box being dropped in the next.  Urban Sniping 101 - be sneaky by taking your shot from INSIDE rooms and don't poke your muzzle out a window.  Shotguns - comparatively - are really low chamber pressure. Interior walls can have insulation for thermal properties, or just for privacy.  People get used to living next to airports, freeways, noisy neighbors, construction sites.  And some folks when they're asleep, they're just simply OUT.  Maybe a bit too "crime novel", but the survivors may have also been dosed with something to render them so.

None of the "sound" aspects of this surprise me much.  But I am curious as to why the nut bucket spared the wife and teen.

Gene L

I can only infer his motives.  He didn't kill his wife or stepdaughter because he was concentrating on suicide/murder but only "his".  The kids were "his" the wife and stepdaughter were not.  He left no note; I searched the computer for one.  His wife said he'd been withdrawn and closed on the weekend before the event, spend his time reading.

Old Ron

Really strange story .

Maybe they were all drugged .

Gene L

They weren't drugged.  They were to all appearances a middle class family.

jbp-ohio

I believe he meant the dad slipped everyone a mickey so they were unconscious.

Gene L

There wasn't any indication that they'd been drugged.  The widow would have remarked on it if they had.  I doubt the father cared whether he woke the survivors up or not;  his actions probably took less than a minute...I don't know this, but the second kid he shot had just started raising his head when his father shot him (interpretation by CSI) and there was no evidence that he sat there and reflect on what he'd just done .  Wham..wham....wham.  All over probably in less than a minute.