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Dad Killed 5 Kids After Wife Dumped Him

He was going to kill her, too: cops

By Ambreen Ali, Newser User

Posted Apr 6, 2009 3:44 AM CDT

(Newser) – The dad who killed his five children and himself near Tacoma, Wash., did so after discovering his wife was leaving him for another man, reports the Seattle Times reports. James Harrison, 34, confronted his wife at a convenience store Saturday before returning home to shoot each child multiple times. Four were asleep, but one was killed in the bathroom where police say there was "a pretty big struggle."

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (1)]

Neighbors comfort each other at a trailer park near Graham, Wash., where a father killed his five children. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Neighbors mourn the loss of five children police say were killed by their father after he discovered his wife was leaving him. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

A home in Graham, Wash., is cordoned off on Saturday as Pierce County Sheriff's officers investigate the murder of five children. (AP Photo/The News Tribune, Joe Barrentine)

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We think he was going to go back to kill the wife. He probably didn't find her and realized the gravity of what he'd done and shot himself.
- Ed Troyer, Pierce County
sheriff's spokesman

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 4 comments

corrozu

Jun 18, 2009 8:24 AM CDT

i don't think he was justifying it at all. he's just asking a simple question.

Jeebus

Apr 7, 2009 4:23 AM CDT

Are you suggesting that married women having boyfriends behind their husbands back is ok? I would hate to be your spouse.

prowlerzee

Apr 6, 2009 4:10 AM CDT

I wonder how scum like you, Nick, justify the inexcusable murderous rage men go into when they find out that women aren't their "possessions" and kill them? And, in this and too many other instances, their own children, too? How different is this from the middle eastern men who stone and behead women for adultery? When are you neanderthals going to come out of the Stone Age?

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Crime & Courts • US

crime • murder-suicide • children • family • Washington state • Seattle • father • filicide

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Dad Killed 5 Kids After Wife Dumped Him