Neighbors pray for victims after boyfriend shoots mother and 2 children, killing 1 child

By Betsy Webster

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    KANSAS CITY, Kansas (KCTV) — Kansas City, Kansas, police and the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Office are investigating a heartbreaking murder-suicide that involves children.

They say a man shot a woman and two children, ages 3 and 7, before turning the gun on himself. He and one of the children were pronounced dead immediately.

Police found the woman shot at Welborn Park then found the man and the children shot inside a four-plex apartment a mile away in the 1500 block of N. 55th Drive.

After crime scene investigators left the apartment, a family with several children came from up the street and left balloons. As the night has worn on, neighbors have been adding candles.

A mother later came with her 10-year-old and a glow stick to leave in lieu of a candle.

“I’m sorry buddy. I’m sorry,” she said as he sobbed. “We’ll get some balloons tomorrow and bring those.”

The mother said her child wanted to share a few words on camera. She thought it might be healing for him. He and many neighborhood kids played with the 7-year-old, she said.

“She was my best friend to the end,” said D’Marion Natt, “And, if she was still here, we would have played today.”

The area was filled with kids, many stepping off the school bus early afternoon Wednesday, negotiating with police how to get around crime tape to their homes.

Wyandotte County Undersheriff Bob Gunja said Wednesday’s violence began at Welborn Park, when a 911 call came in at 7 a.m. about a shooting. There, officers found a woman on the ground.

“She’d been shot once in the head and once in the abdomen,” said Gunja.

He said they were told about a gold SUV driving off and located it parked outside the apartment.

He said that as soon as crews arrived they heard three gunshots, then called KCKPD’s Special Operations Unit to go into standoff mode. They tried for approximately an hour to make contact with the man barricaded inside, he said, then got word he might have kids with him.

“Once we received information that there were two children in the residence, at that time, the decision was made to make an emergency entry,” Gunja recounted. “When they went in, they found three victims shot; two children, ages 3 and 7, and the suspect.”

He said the suspect was dead, along with one of the children. The other child was rushed to the hospital. He didn’t say which child died. He said the woman and surviving child were in critical condition.

Neighbors close by said it was the 7-year-old, a girl, who died and the 3-year-old, a boy, who was placed on a stretcher in an ambulance that sped off.

“I can feel like a dark cloud over our community right now. We all are pulling for them,” said neighbor Brian Jones. “It’s tough.”

A KCK police spokeswoman said the woman and man were a couple and lived there with the two kids. Police haven’t said how they kids were related, but a relative and a close friend both told us both children were hers, and he was the father of the youngest.

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