Authorities Friday said that a father killed his 8-year-old son and then committed suicide in a home in Lower Makefield Township, Pennsylvania.
According to the investigators, Lower Makefield Police responded to a home along the 500 block of Heritage Oak Drive shortly after 6pm Thursday for a wellness check.
When police arrived at the scene, they received no response and while looking through the window, police saw an unresponsive boy on the floor.
Police said: “The officers kicked the door in and entered the home and found the 8-year-old boy on the floor as well as his 47-year-old father who was on the couch.”
Lower Makefield Police Chief Kenneth Coluzz noted that both had gunshot wounds and they were both pronounced dead.
Chief Coluzzi told NBC10 the cause of death was a murder-suicide.
“From what we could determine from the crime scene it’s clear that it’s a murder-suicide at this point. A father shot the individual. Shot his son,” Chief Coluzzi said.
“No one else was home at the time of the shooting and police recovered a handgun,” Chief Coluzzi said.
The identities of the deceased have not yet been revealed and they are waiting for the notification of their family members.
Authorities are also interrogating the boy’s mother to determine if there were any domestic issues with the family prior to Thursday’s shooting.
Coluzzi said the boy attended school in the Pennsbury School
“They’re going to be providing any grief counselling for his friends and things like that. His classmates,” Chief Coluzzi said.
Chief Coluzzi said police are also speaking with neighbours who are already dealing with the recent flooding that killed five people and left two children missing in the nearby Upper Makefield and damaged homes in Lower Makefield.
“It’s tough news. It’s always tough when this happens and there’s a child involved,” he said, adding that “and we just had a lot of tragedy in Upper Makefield and Lower Makefield with the flooding and the children being lost in Upper Makefield and the loss of other lives and the property damage.”
“So we’re just coming off of that and now we have another tragedy that we’re dealing with.”
