A mother of three killed her children and then herself following a police standoff in Verdigris, Oklahoma, according to authorities.
Verdigris is about 20 miles outside of Tulsa, and on the afternoon of July 20, Verdigris Police Department (VPD) officers saw fireworks going off outside a home, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said in a press release. When police arrived at the home, they found an armed woman who had barricaded herself and her children inside the home.
Police brought in a negotiator to speak with the woman, whom The Daily Wire is not naming in keeping with a company policy that seeks to deprive mass killers of notoriety. For three hours, police attempted to make contact with the mother, but she never responded.
“At no time when we were there for that three-hour period did we hear anything from inside the house – nothing – no response, no movement,” Verdigris Police Chief Jack Shackelford said told KWTV.
With no response, officers entered the home and found the mother and her three children all dead. Her children were 11, 6, and the youngest was just 10 months old.
Investigators determined that the mother had shot her three children and then herself, Today reported.
Verdigris Police Chief Jack Shackelford told the Tulsa World that the incident began when a woman who was trapped in the mother’s garage began shooting fireworks through the window to get help. Shackelford added that the woman, a social worker who has not been named by media outlets, had brought one of the mother’s children to the house for a supervised visit. The mother pointed a gun at the social worker and took the child before locking the social worker – and two other children that were with her – inside the garage.
The unnamed social worker and the two other children with her were able to escape with the help of police.
Shackleford told KWTV that he and his officers knew the mother’s residence, as there had been multiple child welfare and domestic violence calls.
“We knew her from previous encounters that we had with that residence and some of the other issues we’d had there before. I knew her by a first name basis and who she was,” he told the outlet.
On July 20, the day of the tragedy, the father of one of the children, Billy Jacobson, posted about the incident on Facebook.
“Please keep us in your prayers,” he wrote.
He also revealed that the mother of his child had previously attempted to kill herself in January.
Jacobson was the father of the 10-month-old killed by his mother.
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