A 13-year-old boy from Massachusetts courageously took his 4-year-old sister to safety during an apparent murder-suicide in their house.
The boy grabbed his sister and escaped the house through a window on Tuesday night while a man shot and killed his girlfriend and then fatally shot himself, police said in a press conference.
“The 13-year-old is a pretty courageous young kid,” Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early said. “He took the 4-year-old in his arms, opened the window, ran out the window to a neighbor’s house.”
Police said that the woman called 911 first but they couldn’t make out what was happening, then another call came in from the gunman himself.
The neighbor that received the boy and his sister also called 911.
The motivation for the tragic event is not clear yet, as the investigation is still in its early stages.
There was another 3-year-old child in the house, who remained there until police arrived around 5:30 pm.
The deceased couple were the parents of two of the children, the other child was from a previous relationship.
“They were a young couple just getting started in life,” one neighbor told WBZ. “Why did something like this happen?”
Early noted that there were three dogs in the house, two of them Rottweilers. Previously the police have been called because one of the dogs was loose.
“A tragic case of domestic violence,” Early stated.
