Man kills 5 children after wife leaves

Men, take caution. Brace yourselves in these hard times.


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SEATTLE — A Washington state man shot and killed his five children, between the ages of seven and 16, then turned the gun on himself after his wife told him she was leaving him, in the third mass shooting since Friday in the United States.

James Harrison, 34, killed his children early on Saturday inside his mobile home in Graham, 100km south of here, then drove to a nearby casino and shot himself inside his car, a Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman told reporters.

Harrison had found his wife, who had been missing, at a convenience store with another man. She told him she was leaving him to be with her new boyfriend.

Alerted by neighbours, police found the five children dead, some shot several times, inside the mobile home’s bedrooms and bathroom.

Harrison was found dead inside his car. He had shot himself with a rifle.

The family tragedy marks the latest spasm of gun violence in the US which has been rocked by six fatal mass shootings in the past three weeks, including three police officers killed on Saturday by a 23-year-old man at his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Criminologist Jack Levin, of Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, said there appears to be a link between the failing US economy and rising body count. “A mass killer is someone who has almost always suffered a catastrophic loss — that’s the link between a recession and mass killings,” he said, citing the loss of a job, the loss of a lot of money or the loss of a relationship. “Catastrophic losses serve as inspiration or precipitant,” he said.
- AFP


From TODAY, World
Monday, 06-April-2009