Police: 5 children, father die in murder-suicide

[kwame k]

GRAHAM, Wash. – A father apparently shot to death five of his children, ages 7 to 16, at their mobile home and then killed himself near a casino miles away, police said Saturday.

Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff, called it a domestic violence situation and a murder-suicide.

"We believe they all died of gunshot wounds," Troyer said.

Police found the father's body early Saturday in his still-running car near the Muckleshoot Casino in Auburn, about 30 miles south of Seattle. He had apparently killed himself with a rifle, although no note was left in the car, Auburn Police Sgt. Scott Near said.

Later in the day, Pierce County deputies checked the mobile home, which is about 20 miles southeast of the casino, and found four of the children dead in their beds and the fifth in the bathroom.

Neighbors in the Deer Run mobile home park, a neat, well-kept community nestled among towering evergreens, were shocked and weeping at the news.

"How could something like this happen?" asked Mary Riplinger, whose kids were playmates of the slain children. "Everyone's asking: Why did he do it? It's not right."

The mother of the victims was not at home, Troyer said. Deputies were called to the mobile home after a relative stopped by and saw a child lying motionless on a bed through a window, but couldn't get anyone to answer the door.

He said investigators believe the husband and wife were not estranged.

"Clearly she's been very traumatized," Troyer told The News Tribune of Tacoma. "You kind of get hardened to seeing people who are killed because of their own bad actions. But these kids died through no fault of their own. This is something you never want to see."

Authorities did not release the names of the family, but Troyer identified the dead children as four girls and a 7-year-old boy.

Another neighbor, Dale Lund, told The Seattle Times the 7-year-old boy who was killed played at times with his grandson and the boys shared the same school bus stop and attended the same elementary school together.

He said the dead boy played in his own yard most of the time.

"They pretty much kept to themselves over there," Lund said.

Dozens of investigators were on the scene trying to reconstruct the crime and discover a motive.

Link

[kwame k]

"You kind of get hardened to seeing people who are killed because of their own bad actions. But these kids died through no fault of their own. This is something you never want to see."

Exactly!

[FORD]

Graham isn't exactly a bastion of sanity, but this is extreme even for that place

[LoungeMachine]

Unfathonable.

Next we'll hear the father was "recently laid off"

so incredibly heartbreaking.

[Little Texan]

WTF is wrong with people these days? Why is this kind of shit happening so often lately? WHAT IS THE DEAL?

[sadaist]

Unfathonable.

Next we'll hear the father was "recently laid off"

so incredibly heartbreaking.

I'm wondering if he had a gambling problem. All of these new casinos (4 within an hour of me) have created new problems and broke people that become desperate. Not any excuse for this. Just throwing in there another possible reason that caused this guy to snap.

I liked it so much better when we had to go to Vegas to gamble. Now they bring it to our back door. These Indian type casinos have horrible return percentages and are not required to post their payoff returns like in Nevada. I went to the local one a bunch of times their first year, but stay away like it's the plague now. It doesn't help that they bring in some decent concerts and have the only good steak restaurant in town either.

I was actually happy when I heard news that casinos were getting hit hard in the recession. Unfortunately, maybe they tightened up their machines even more...causing more problems for addicted gamblers.

[sadaist]

We get this stuff in San Diego too. Taken from the SD Tribune online. I see these every week.
San Diego, California, National News - The San Diego Union-Tribune

One dead in Carlsbad park shooting
One dead in Carlsbad park shooting -- Union-Tribune Newsblog

woman's stabbing death had no apparent motive
Suspect in woman's stabbing death had no apparent motive

[FORD]

I suspect that a lot of these people who have gone nuts and on mass killing sprees in recent years have been on pharmaceutical drugs, anti-depressants more than likely. You probably won't hear that from the corporate media though, considering who runs 2/3 of the advertising on TV anymore.

That's not to let the BCE off the hook for destroying the economy or anything, because the increase of these incidents in recent weeks is evidence enough that the Chimp Recession is at least a trigger, if not the root cause of these tragedies.

[Blaze]

I suspect that a lot of these people who have gone nuts and on mass killing sprees in recent years have been on pharmaceutical drugs, anti-depressants more than likely. You probably won't hear that from the corporate media though, considering who runs 2/3 of the advertising on TV anymore.

That's not to let the BCE off the hook for destroying the economy or anything, because the increase of these incidents in recent weeks is evidence enough that the Chimp Recession is at least a trigger, if not the root cause of these tragedies.

:applause: