Jennifer Berman of West Palm Beach, Florida killed her two children, Alexander Berman and Jacqueline Berman, before turning the gun on herself.
Berman was described as struggling financially following her divorce from well-known realtor Richard Berman in December 2013.
Berman sent emails to her ex-husband, as well as others to other members of the family, on Monday morning, saying she was going to harm herself or other family members.
He quickly alerted police, who went to the home, only to find all three of them dead.
Berman and her children were going to move out of the house in February. She worked from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. as a personal nurse for a 99-year-old man on Pershing Way, reported the Palm Beach Post. She also had a real estate license.
She was struggling with money and tried to get Richard Berman to pay fees associated with the divorce.
“The husband has not paid the mortgage on the former marital home during the entire time of the dissolution of marriage proceeding. He has not contributed to the support of the wife or of the minor children,” court documents read. “In fact, he has refused to pay for toilet paper, buys food and supplies for himself and keeps them where the wife and children cannot access them.”
Berman was forced to sell her late father’s watch to buy essentials, according to the documents. Berman and Richard Berman spent an equal amount of time with the children.
Alexander, 16, and Jacqueline, 15, attended the W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, where they were budding musicians and part of the orchestra. Alexander played the cello while his sister played the violin.
Family and friends are trying to cope with the sudden deaths.
“Going through a divorce, foreclosure,” Brian McManus, a friend of the family, told WSVN, “a lot of that stuff which, it’s an upsetting thing when you’re going through a divorce and having to sell the beautiful house in this neighborhood, and it’s just she just seemed like she had been upset lately. You can’t fathom, you can’t understand what’s going on in someone’s head for things like that to happen.”
Some neighbors said that the divorce sent Berman over the edge.
Something missing, something disturbed in her mind,“ said Maram Sklodowski. ”The conversation, the language, the eyes, something was missing.”
