A father shot and killed his wife, his daughter and then himself in an apparent murder-suicide in Lowell Saturday morning, according to the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office.
The father called 911 just before 6:40 a.m. and told dispatchers he had shot his wife and child, the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office said in a press release Saturday night. Officers responded to the Warren Street apartment where he lived and found all three dead from gunshot wounds — the man’s self-inflicted.
The Chief Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the family’s cause and manner of death, the district attorney’s office said. Lowell police and the district attorney’s office are still investigating the deaths.
No further information has been released. The victims’ identities are not being released, the district attorney’s office said.
This is at least the fifth murder-suicide to happen in Massachusetts this year, following cases in Brockton, Springfield, Boston and Haverhill. Additionally, a Cape Cod native was killed along with her friend in a murder-suicide in Florida last month.
Experts say this type of domestic homicide is not increasing in frequency, but that it happens in any and all communities. Murder-suicides typically happen in families that have long dealt with domestic abuse.
