A Louisiana mother killed a neighbor, her four children — including a 5-month-old — and then herself Thursday night, days after she was seen walking around her apartment waving a recently purchased gun.
Monroe Police said Brittany Tucker, 30, encountered her neighbor, 20-year-old Anteshia Logwood, outside the apartment building shortly before 8 p.m., the Monroe News Star reported. Tucker reportedly asked Logwood, “What are you laughing at?” KNOE said.
“That is when (Tucker) produced a handgun she had recently purchased and fired a shot,” Interim Monroe Police Chief Reggie Brown told the New Star. “She then proceeded to her apartment, apartment 159, where her children were. She proceeded to shoot each one of her children, and there were four children inside the apartment. All four children died as a result of their injuries.”
Investigators identified the children as 12-year-old Tremayne, 8-year-old Trechelle, 5-year-old Treasure, and 5-month-old Glory. Tucker shot herself before police arrived, and police said the gun was legally purchased.
Brown said Tucker had been diagnosed with a mental illness and receiving treatment. Witnesses reported that her condition had recently worsened.
“Here recently, she appeared to be in a mental crisis, and the mental health crisis continued to get worse and her state of mental health deteriorated over the past two or three days,” Brown said.
Brown said that Tucker was “a victim in this as well.” “That is why we are praying for her parents and her family as well as the Logwood family,” he said. “This a tragic incident that we wish we would have been able to prevent.”
Faith leaders from across northeast Louisiana held a prayer rally for mental health awareness on Friday, KNOE reported.
“We need our community to know that every one of us is here for each other – in the good times, the bad times when things are going well and not so well,” said Vance Price, pastor of New St. James Baptist Church, who organized the rally.
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