A heavily pregnant Idaho mother shot her toddler to death before turning the gun on herself, police said.
Elizabeth Lawley, 33, and her unnamed 2-year-old son were found dead Wednesday evening inside her father’s home in Wallace, a small town about 50 miles east of Coeur d’Alene along Interstate 90.
“The preliminary investigation indicates that Lawley likely killed her son and then killed herself,” the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office said.
Lawley was roughly six months pregnant when she committed the apparent murder-suicide, cops said.
Lawley’s father was the first to stumble upon the grisly scene, the Coeur d’Alene Press reported.
Neighbors said he returned to his home around 6 p.m. and assumed his daughter and grandchild were napping in a separate room in the house.
It wasn’t until 8:30 p.m. that he went to check in on them and found their bodies.
“Speaking honestly, in my 19 years of service for Shoshone County, I’ve never seen the SCSO so somber, so devastated; we shared a lot of hugs, and we shared a lot of tears. Today was an extremely difficult day for the family, for our office, and for this community,” Sheriff Holly Lindsey said on the tragedy.
“I may just be sleep deprived, but I can’t stop thinking about how precious life is.
“Kiss your spouse, hug your children, call your parents and your sibling(s) to check in with them-don’t take any of it for granted…not even for a minute.”
The apparent murder-suicide is the latest in a string of familicides to sweep the nation.
Last week, Utah doctor Parth Gandhi killed his 16-year-old son and then himself inside his Psychedelic Therapy and Research office.
The nation is still reeling after Massachusetts mother Lindsay Clancy — who was suffering from postpartum depression — strangled her three young kids to death before trying to kill herself.
