The Dallas County Coroner has determined that the mayor of Coppell, Texas, a wealthy Dallas suburb killed her 19 year old daughter before turning the gun on herself. This whole thing is crazy. Usually in these kinds of cases the kids are not that old when they are killed by a family member. Plus, they are not so thoroughly planned out. How do we know this was planned out?
When the police arrived at the house while doing a welfare check, on the front porch was an envelope containing a note and key to the house. Three other notes were inside the house and were instructions on how to take care of the dogs and what plants needed to be watered and when. Seriously?
The mayor was elected in 2009 to that post and had been on the City Council for about 12 years. Her husband had died of cancer in 2008. I wonder if that had something to do with it? Very strange. The 19 year old daughter was scheduled to start college in the fall and leave home. Maybe that had something to do with it. I would love to know.
damn! I have a friend who lives in Coppell, TX! That's nuts!
ReplyDeletePoor daughter and poor doggies. :(
Suicide is a terrible thing. Even worse, is when they want to die, but don't want to go alone, so they take others down with them.
ReplyDeleteHoly moly. I saw this on the crawl and assumed it was a murder/robbery/home invasion/murder for hire kind of thing. Or, being Texas, maybe it was gonna come out as being some kind of drug gang-related thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm stunned it was woman, for starters. Just doesn't seem like a woman's kind of thing to do, at least not one who isn't whacked out or has some other mitigating kind of situation. A Mayor seems kind of a higher-caliber (no pun intended) sort of person who would not resort to such an awful end.
I feel sorry for the remaining family, if there is any.
My oldest is about to start college and while I am going to be sad when she leaves....I sure as hell am not going to shoot her!
ReplyDeleteHow very sad. Offhand, I'd say the mayor was probably something of a control freak and a perfectionist. Her husband's cancer and death were things she couldn't control or "fix". To say that she probably never dealt with her grief is something of an understatement. Now her daughter was grown and leaving the nest and would be out of her control. Murder-suicides are the ulimate acts of a pyscotically controling person. They usually feel that they are doing their victims a favor. They feel that "if I kill myself, their life won't be worth living anyway. Taking them with me is the ultimate loving thing to do." I also wonder if other crazy/unsavory stuff about this woman won't be surfacing in the days to come. Why were the authorities doing a welfare check? Sounds like something had happened previously. Poor girl.
ReplyDeleteHow sad. Why couldn't she have just left the daughter alone? I will never understand murder-suicides. Take your own life if that is what you really want but leave everyone else alone.
ReplyDeleteI wish peace and comfort to all the family/friends of both of these people. We had an event like this happen to our family years ago, no answers even to this day. Please, if you know someone or if you are feeling like you are losing it, GET HELP! Not a day goes by that I do not think of my brother in law.
ReplyDeleteJust. Wow.
ReplyDeleteVery very sad. I think RJ has a good point. Control Freak = The letters on feeding the dogs and watering the plants. She definitely had a routine..
lol BigMama you're a good mom not shooting her.
ReplyDeleteugh people are so selfish. 19 is just the bloom of youth for a girl. So many possiblities in life. And the arrogance of her prolly thinking she was doing her daughter a favor killing her so she wouldn't be alone. No, mom you're a coward. and a dead coward now.
You can never understand crazy people.
how devastating for the remaining immediate/extended family! :(
ReplyDeleteI WAS having a great afternoon, how sad:(
ReplyDeleteSo sad - I'm sure the woman was in a lot of pain from the loss of her husband, but to think that she wanted to kill herself and her daughter, but also make sure her dogs and plants were taken care of? Crazy.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a strange story...
ReplyDeleteDid she have other children???
Sounds like mental illness gone untreated.
ReplyDeleteI think the "welfare check" was because the mayor didn't show up for the regular city council meeting or whatever, which everyone has said is odd and which seemed ... wrong. So when no one still had heard a word from the mayor they sent the police to her house to check up. That's what I understood from other news coverage, anyway. Not that the police were doing what we normally think of as a "welfare check" on child protection issues etc.
ReplyDeleteWhat Tenley said about the "welfare check" - they were checking up on her.
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing is strange. From my own personal experience with suicide, women rarely end their lives violently, and it's strange she would take such care to ensure that her animals and belongings were cared for, but then take her daughter down with her, too.
Sad that this woman was more concerned about her plants than her own fucking daughter.
ReplyDeleteI know this is a long shot but....I wonder if the notes actually said anything about suicide. The reason I ask is that perhaps those notes were left for someone and they were preparing to leave for a trip, perhaps to college. Just wondering if someone was trying to make it look like a suicide. Or perhaps it truly was murder-suicide, but the notes were not related and were originally left for someone in preparation for them leaving? I just always wonder when a political figure dies in such a way. Makes me very suspcious.
ReplyDeleteMakes me wish there were a hell so that this bitch -- and all the others who take people with them -- could go there and roast.
ReplyDeleteIf she'd been a man, I'd suspect he'd been molesting the daughter. That kind of control freakishness sounds consistent. Killing her then himself would preserve the image. So maybe there is a complicated situation like that going on. Or maybe she's just friggin' nuts.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you Ice Angel. I wonder what the notes said.
ReplyDeleteI knew a woman in Colorado named Jaine Peters who killed herself in the 90's in a violent way-- by dousing herself with gasoline and lighting a match. It was very sad-- she had also been a respected, widely known and loved community figure.
ReplyDeleteIt's entirely possible the daughters death was an accident and the woman felt so guilty she killed herself. Maybe the mayor threatened to kill herself if her daughter left her too, the daughter tried to stop her, and the gun went off, the woman felt so guilty she decided to go through what she had only threatened to do. Or maybe she just didn't want to go to jail.
ReplyDeleteWe will never know sadly.
So true... we will never know.
ReplyDeleteIn my wildest dreams I can not imagine ever being depressed enough that I would take my child's life. But I guess there are depths of despair I cannot comprehend.
Hi gang.. I just glanced at the comments, but I was just up in the Metroplex and this has everyone stunned!
ReplyDeleteAlso reported on one of the local news stations is that she was also being seen at MD Anderson in Houston.
This is most def a strange and tragic story and I bet more will come out later.
i'm going to put my two cents on the possibility of
ReplyDelete1. depression
2. post traumatic stress disorder
3. menopause
4. ocd
and the council had to have been watching her collapse, because why would it have been a welfare check instead of a council member, a friend, neighbor or the cops? and did no one hear the shots?
and sadly
5. suicide pact.
very, very sad. i hope the rest of the family is able to come to terms with losing an entire branch of the family tree. awful, awful.
I live in DFW.
ReplyDeleteThe news is reporting that even though there were 3 notes left in the house (2 typed, 1 handwritten) they didn't address why she did it. Just the instructions on taking care of the pets and plants.
The news last night had reports that the mayor was under investigation for possibly doing something illegal with money from the job as well.
The really weird thing, though, is that the daughter wasn't registered to attend any orientation session at UT. But she hadn't told her friends that and apparently was still acting like she was heading down any day now.