Three young girls are dead and another is in serious condition after their mother shot them in the head and then turned the gun on herself in Wyoming, authorities said.
The mom called 911 on Monday afternoon to report that her four daughters had been shot in her home in Big Horn County, the local sheriff’s office said.
The woman — whom local media later identified as 32-year-old Tranyelle Harshman — told the dispatcher where the girls were located in the house before abruptly cutting the call.
When officers arrived, they discovered the girls with gunshot wounds to their heads, along with their mother, who had apparently turned the gun on herself.
Only one of the girls, a 7-year-old, survived. Her three sisters — a 9-year-old and two 2-year-olds born less than a year apart — were killed, according to MTN News.
Harshman was found alive but later succumbed to her wounds.
Police are still investigating the circumstances behind the tragedy, but Harshman’s husband Cliff Harshman told Cowboy State Daily that his wife had been receiving treatment for severe mental health issues, including PTSD and postpartum depression.
“My wife is not a monster,” he told the outlet, weeping. “Most people don’t understand how that affects the brain. It’s a chemical imbalance … And it can be exacerbated by trying to fix it with medication.”
Cliff Harshman is the biological father of the two youngest victims and had been helping raise the older two — one of whom is now clinging to life in a Salt Lake City hospital.
Friends launched a Kickstarter fundraiser to help pay her medical bills.
“Cliff Harshman, a devoted husband and father of four beautiful daughters, has suffered an unimaginable loss,” the fundraiser’s page reads.
