Pennsylvania Mother Commits Suicide After Killing Her Two Children

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

This week's deaths of a Pennsylvania woman and her two young children have been declared suicide and murder amid a controversial divorce between the mother and her husband, People confirms.

Carola Arnau, 40, was found dead in her burning home in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, early Tuesday morning, according to authorities.

The bodies of their two sons, a 4-year-old boy and a 10-year-old daughter, were discovered near their beds.

Arnau died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, an official from the Lancaster County Coroner's Office told People.

Authorities believe he shot his daughter multiple times in the head and his son several times in the body while they slept, then committed suicide.

At a press conference Tuesday, officials said that earlier in the morning, Arnau set fire to his home, shot his children, and then killed himself with his handgun, which he had purchased the day before. The exact order of events - the shooting and the fire - is still unclear.

"It appears that [the children] were shot in their sleep, and there would have been no fight, as pathetic as it is comfortable that sounds," Lancaster County Attorney Craig Stedman told reporters.

Arnau's husband, the children's father, was working at the time of the fire, but tried to run inside the house when he arrived on the scene, according to Lancaster Online. Officials detained him.

According to investigators, Arnau and her husband were in the midst of a "bitter" divorce, Stedman said Tuesday. While Arnau and her children lived in the main house, her husband lived in a garage separate from the main structure.

Stedman said officials are investigating the couple's history and Arnau's mental health. The occisa had been receiving treatment prior to the incident, according to a statement released by the district attorney's office.