A Michigan family is trying to make sense of a horrific tragedy after a mom pulled her daughters out of school then used her boyfriend’s hunting-style rifle to shoot and kill her three little girls one-by-one.
Alyssa Rau, the cousin of the youngest child, told WOOD-TV:
“I don’t understand it. She had beautiful children, wonderful children. I don’t see what the reason was to take them, too.”
According to investigators, early last week 28-year-old Aubrianne Moore presented school officials with a forged doctor’s note and gathered all three girls around noon and drove them to their great-grandfather’s property, reports Fox News.
The Kent County Sheriff’s Office said sisters Alaina Rau, 2, Cassidy Rodery, 6, and Kyrie Rodery, 8, were found dead of apparent gunshot wounds around 3 p.m. in a rural Kent community.
Authorities say the mother took the children into the woods and shot them with a bolt-action rifle before driving back to her boyfriend’s home and killing herself outside the vehicle with the same gun.
There was no suicide letter, however, court documents obtained by WYFF revealed Moore suffered from hallucinations and schizophrenia. She was committed to a mental hospital in September. The social worker wrote:
Aubrianne is keeping her kids home from school because the television told her there would be a school bus accident today.
Aubrianne stays awake at night believing people will break into her home. Aubrianne is not eating believing food is being poisoned.”
According to the social worker’s notes, Moore was both a danger to herself and her children.
She wrote:
I believe the individual has mental illness and as a result of that mental illness the individual can reasonably be expected within the near future to intentionally or unintentionally seriously physically injure self or others.
Moore was hospitalized for more than a week, however, her relatives told WOOD-TV she was sick and needed more help. Moore’s brother Joseph Graham believes she was “failed by the system,” according to the children’s GoFundMe page.
Rau said:
“They were awesome kids, absolutely great. The oldest excelled in reading like no other. The youngest one, she was just so joyful and so happy all the time. And then the middle child, she was just rambunctious and wild and always put a smile on everybody’s face.”
Authorities told WXMI that Moore’s social media posts the week of the murders indicated she believed her children were in danger.
Brandon Rodery, the father of two of the victims, said he was aware of Moore’s mental illness and doesn’t want the mother of his children to be “portrayed as a monster.”
He believes she wasn’t taking her medication at the time of the murder-suicide.
