quote: FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Police discovered nine bodies intertwined in a pile of clothes at a Fresno home and 10 coffins stacked along a wall, and were trying to determine if some ritual was involved in the slaughter.
A 57-year-old man surrendered to police after walking out of the house covered in what appeared to be blood.
The victims were seven children ranging in age from 1 to 8, a 20-year-old woman and a 17-year-old girl. All were thought to be the children of Marcus Wesson, whom police handcuffed following a brief standoff....
The grim scene caused even veteran officers to weep.
Police Chief Jerry Dyer wiped tears from his eyes as officers carried the bodies from the home, cradling the youngest ones in their arms.
"I've been with the Fresno Police Department for 25 years, and I've never experienced anything of this nature," he said.
Dyer said the victims probably were Wesson's children. "There may have been some type of ritual involved," he said.
posted
Unless I misread the article, the title to the thread is inaccurate. It looks like these were all murders. The suspect didn't commit suicide.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Somethimes these things just happen too close to home for comfort. You can detach to a certain extent (or at least I've trained myself to) when something like this happens 200 miles away, or on the other side of the country, or on the other side of the world. But this happened maybe fifteen miles from where I live, not more than a mile from my best friend's house.
sndrake...you are correct; the suspect did not commit suicide, but gave up after a standoff with the SWAT team. The weird thing is, all they kept asking on the news reports last night was, "how come he didn't kill himself, too; they almost always do".
The whole thing began, if early reports are correct, as a "domestic dispute" in which two women whose children were living with the suspect (their father; at last report it was unclear if all the mothers of the children were living in the house) wanted to remove their children from the situation against the suspect's wishes. Reports have it that it was an obviously peculiar living situation, in which the children were rarely or never seen, but the suspect was seen in the yard manhandling the women and "supervising" while the women worked. Speculation is that he killed the children rather than lose control over them.
It was an obviously horrible situation at the scene last night - at least one of the local tv stations went with live coverage for upwards of two hours. I've never seen either Police Chief Dyer or Mayor Autry so obviously distraught in coverage of any previous situation. This is the first time I have ever seen the Fresno news media representatives not continue to shout questions - but when the mayor was finished making his statement (which just sort of trailed off) and then said, after a long silence, "Are we through here" no one tried to ask questions and let him just walk away.
It has been reported that all of the first responders who actually had to enter the house have been put on adminstrative leave due to their emotional response to what they saw. At least one of the reporters on the scene broke down in tears on the air. For once, I think the statement that the whole community is in shock over the crime is probably not journalistic hyperbole.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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My best wishes for you and your best friend. I usually tune out the news, but this just struck me to the core.
sndrake, thanks for pointing that out. Because many of these custody-related murders end in a murder suicide, I thought it was a possibility. I apologize if I mislead you.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I have this really odd feeling that they should just bulldoze the whole place down, torch everything until nothing is left but ash, salt the earth, then pour about six feet of concrete over the whole thing.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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