Harrowing pictures show a woman breaking down on the street outside the California home where a father is believed to have shot his twin sons dead in a triple murder-suicide.
The man and the 10-year-old boys died at the house in the 8016 block of Owensmouth Avenue in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Canoga Park.
Officers were called to the scene around 7:15 p.m. Sunday and found distraught relatives outside the property.
Pictures showed a woman, who has not been identified, lying on the ground in a man’s arms covering her face as she cried following the family gathering.
She added: “I felt like, even though we might not see their family, we thought that they needed some prayer and some thought, because, like, I don’t know, I know me personally, whether I know them or not, I would want to pray for someone’s healing and just overall as a person, because that’s really sad and I don’t wish that upon anybody.”
Another local, named only as CC Pelkey, told KTLA: “My heart is breaking for this family because this is tragic. This should never happen to anybody.
“The kids never had a chance to have a life, and I don’t know why the father, if he did have issues, couldn’t have gotten help. Why? To take his children’s lives and his own life. It’s just, there are no words right now.”
Investigators spent hours processing the scene, carrying evidence from the home as they worked to reconstruct the moments leading up to the deaths.
The house sits across from Lanark Park, where a heavy police presence drew the attention of families and other parkgoers throughout the day.
