My heart goes out to this family..........and the families they left behind.

The parents think they're 'saving' their children from growing up as orphans.

I never will.

Because they were fucking nuts.

Many many families go thru a lot of stress with insurance, medical bills and a bunch of other stuff too.... but don't kill the whole family.
These crazies just used their child's problems as an excuse.

Let's face it, it was probably "he".

You have a point.


But, y'know..... mothers kill all the time too.

as for mothers killing 'all the time too", I don't know about that..Mothers are often home more often with their kids, but

I'd say the rate is still higher with men, who, in general, kill a lot more often than women.

Mothers are more likely to kill infants than fathers. Fathers are more likely to kill children over 8.

Source.

As long as they keep it even.

Seriously, though..As a group, men commit more violent crimes. Period.

Post partum depression is particularly nasty. Stepdaughter is suffering from it now, and there's not much we can do for her when an episode overtakes her. Her husband isn't much help, he's still a bit young and self-absorbed; it's been five months and he still can't (or won't) notice the clear warning signs when reality starts going sideways for her.

The other grandparent, a tea-partier type, has actually locked up his guns; he finally realizes how bad she can get and is telling his son to get over himself and start being pro-active about getting her to seek help.

Watching the kidlet when she experiences a freak out, I can easily see a mother losing it from the stress and deciding everything in her world just needs to stop right now...and a gun is an easy "re-set" button for someone who is totally out of it. Post partum mania phase - it's like a big angry monster just rears up from the back of her head and digs it's huge red claws into her brain - sort of a behinder face hugger.

Haele

On edit - reading further down, it does appear that the additional stress might be the mother leaving, which swings the risk of gun violence back towards the man. But even then, reporting does not outright indicate who was the shooter.

Last edited Tue Aug 9, 2016, 08:23 AM - Edit history (1)

Mothers killing their children -- Even with post-partum-- is rare. Murder-suicides of entire families by mothers are even MORE rare -- Try again.

If this were a betting exercise I would bet the way you would, but it isn't.

So you might want to ask the poster who did.

Even if the husband/father can't see it, I'm so grateful the grandparents see it and reacting in a worse-case-scenario mode to protect everyone.

It might be worth the husband tipping off her OB (through the nurse). They may not be able to "listen" to his comments or say anything other than call emergency if something is imminent. But, it may put them on alert to do intensive screening for PPD or PP psychosis when she has a checkup.

I wonder if the woman in the OP was leaving to obtain additional social benefits to redirect towards her child's needs.

This is so sad. It didn't need to happen if we actually took care of disabled children and those with severe chronic health problems. Living in Texas, we were broke the first half of the year paying for my son's medications to treat behaviors related to autism. Texas doesn't participate in the federal program that helps fund the out-of-pocket expenses that insurance won't pay. I didn't know it existed until I met someone who had moved from a Deeming Waiver state.

The little girl had a heart transplant. I wonder if the family had huge medical bills, another stressor. Our medical system sucks big time.

The stress they were under must have been unbelievable. This is beyond heartbreaking.

or getting help with expensive meds like antirejection drugs. If there is any sort of delay, people can get horribly ill.

I used to get misdelivered drugs for a family one block over. I walked them over when I discovered them in my mailbox but I can't imagine the anxiety their empty mailbox would have provoked before I got there.

Large mail order pharmacies have lower overhead than bricks and mortar drug stores, I get that. However, it's a terrible system to have to cope with, especially with a sick child who will die without her medication given on time, every day.

I can see someone going completely around the bend from this shit.

you don't even get to talk to the same pharmacist each time you have a question. This is why if at all possible one should deal with their local corner pharmacy. They take a personal interest in their patients and you are always dealing with the same pharmacist that knows your situation.

Mail order pharmacies are terrible with customer service. They are only a money saving/making venture extension of the insurance companies and they don't really care about their patients.

I could only order so far in advance, they were supposed to call me and never did, and I was NOT to miss a dose, but they didn't care.

It was awful, and it was just me - not my child. I totally understand the stress this family was under. It's a shame that their way out was for everyone to die by bullet.

am amazed any pharmacy would ship drugs without requiring a signature. Mine is so strict that it's onerous - but understandable. The drugs are so expensive, it's remarkable they would just drop them in a mailbox! The financial liability alone would be huge.

I get 9 vials of Lantus and 3 vials of Humulin-R at a time. Lantus retails for over $200 per vial; Humulin-R is over $120.00 per vial retail, so that's a couple thousand dollars of drugs that must be keep cold delivered to my door. Fortunately, my mail order pharmacy is part of my HMO and I'm lucky enough to have excellent coverage so I can afford to be diabetic.

The last time I had a PICC line in for IV antibiotic therapy, a fresh cooler of meds was delivered to my door daily.

Just curious why are you still on shots?

Pumps are awesome these days.

THAT's why the battle for drug monopolies. And it is insane...you have to pay a company money so they can sell you a drug from a store they own.
I did not realize this before, did not get why drugs had to be mailed to customers. Now I know.

My insurance company (through work) turned over all prescription management to Express-Scripts, the mail order people. Now, my retail pharmacies have to get approval through them as opposed to the insurance company.

In my wildest dreams, I never knew how much of a cluster fuck that would be (and has been), and I don't have specialty-pharma needs like this family dealt with. I can't even begin to imagine their anguish. And now they are all gone.

The only way we have been able to get to a customer service person is to go to f'n Walgreens and have their pharmacist call them.
You can't even contact anyone or make requests except via an email drop-box at their website, and trying to call eventually gets you to a voice drop-box where you can leave a message for them to call you, instead of reaching an actual person.
For our insurance policy, they run their big ticket meds through Accredo, and Accredo is almost as difficult to reach.

Haele

about two prescriptions to opt out/switch to my local pharmacy instead of their mail service. I was able to speak to a live person, 1-866-297-0984. However when I went to my pharmacy, there was still an issue with one of them and the pharmacist gave me another # to call which went directly to an ES supervisor, 1-877-603-1032.

The stress this family must have been going through can only be imagined.

Goddam motherfucking baby-killer.

it puts on a family you are truly lucky. Deciding whether to buy medicine for your child or other close loved one or food is a tough decision. Big Pharma and Corporate medicine run this country.

"SINKING SPRING, PA - Megan Short reportedly made no secret of the fact that she planned to leave her husband.
About a week ago, Short posted on Facebook that she needed a few people to help her move from her Brookfield Manor home Aug. 6, according to Angie Burke, who resides on the same Sinking Spring street as Short.
Burke said she met Short through neighborhood events such as the annual Christmas ornament exchange or Halloween parties, and they kept in contact, mostly through Facebook.

Burke wasn't able to help with the move because she was planning to host a birthday party for her husband and had family coming in from out of town.

On the way back from the bakery with the birthday cake, Burke saw emergency vehicles in front of the Short home, and her heart sank."

http://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/a-young-familys-final-anguish

Apparently, the wife was getting ready to move out. It doesn't take much to then infer that the husband was the shooter.

roughly 30,000 Firearm Deaths/year

roughly 300,000,000 Firearms in circulation.

0.0001% of all guns are involved in death every year. 1 out of every 10,000.

Doesn't really make me feel better about "major" or "minor".

People who want to kill themselves will find a way. Think: Japan.

Just like murder, guns also make killing yourself a lot more efficient.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/09/suicide-gun-stats

Also dumb is comparing the US with Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan#Cultural_attitude_toward_suicide

Perhaps you think you've come up with something original, but it's not as if this sort of nonsense hasn't been debunked over and over.

But I am not surprised. People who want to kill and have decided to do so WILL find a way, Major. Efficiency is secondary. Fertilizer, trucks, cans of gasoline (for the mass-murder types). Knives, clubs and the "assault machete" for those into Hutu-type cost-savings.

If you were serious about lowering crime, you might read "Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy Alliance," if you care about the topic beyond the "mass spectaculars" most in DU are moved by.

One thing I have had driven home by my years at DU: The image or culture of a superior intellectual tradition, sound argument and good reasoning, assigned (for better or worse) to liberal thought has collapsed with the concocted rise of Gun Control as an "issue." But you did throw out that chafe some liberals use when they catch flak: "Debunked."

Oh! the irony. It ain't just in Erie.

Wayne LaPierre couldn't have said it better.

not the wife or kids. Pretty much locks down who was the shooter.

That's 5 more dead in this week's Mass Killing. The American Gun Holocaust rolls on, with nary a twinge of conscience from its apologists.

by this pharma/insurance nightmare. Coupled with Post-Partum depression and guns in the house -- they all played a major role.

Every Familicide has unique circumstances that play a "major role". One typically is the wife leaving the husband. But the most common feature in 90% (+/-) of them is the gun. That was typically bought for "protection" of the family.

It is very hard to stab 4 people and a dog to death, then yourself. That's why it rarely happens, whereas this tragedy is all too typical.

in the ton of things that caused someone to snap...

None of us knows what really was going on in that marriage...

Sooner or later, someone will have had bad day, or a sufficient number of bad days, and simply give up hope.

I hate having to use them. Instead of being able to get what I need on a monthly basis, which generally runs me 100.00 in co-pay. I have to order 3 months supply a a time which I can not afford. So I find and myself ordering one prescription every month and hoping it arrives in he mail before I run out.

It is terrible enough when healthy adults commit suicide!

To kill your own healthy, independently living and breathing children, just for vanity's sake (we own these children and they are going to die with us mentality) is fundamentally wrong.