A Wyoming mother allegedly called 911 to confess that she’d shot her four daughters, and was planning to do the same to herself.
One of the young victims reportedly survived the attack, but was clinging to life Thursday.
The tragic incident occurred Monday when Tranyelle Harshman phoned law enforcement around 1:30 p.m. to report her daughters, ages 2-9, had been shot, according to the Big Horn County Police Department.
“When dispatchers asked the status of the gunshot victims, the female stated that she believed them to be deceased,” police said, adding that Harshman then expressed her intent to fatally shoot herself.
The 32-year-old mother told the dispatcher that law enforcement would find two of the victims in a crib on the second floor of her home and the other two in a lower-level bedroom they shared. She said that she’d be found in her upstairs bedroom, then disconnected the call despite the dispatcher’s multiple attempts to keep her on the line.
When authorities arrived to the Byron residence roughly five minutes later, they found all four children and the mother with gunshot wounds to the head. Two of the young victims, ages 2 and 9, were pronounced dead at the scene.
The other two girls, ages 2 and 7, were found alive but critically wounded. They were taken to a hospital where the 2-year-old died “a very short time later due to the extent of her injuries,” police said.
Harshman was also found seriously wounded on Monday from a seemingly self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police confirmed Tuesday night that she died earlier that day in an northern Wyoming hospital, reported local NBC affiliate KULR8.
As of Thursday, the 7-year-old victim was still alive in a Salt Lake City hospital, where she’d been airlifted for advanced treatment, according to a GoFundMe set up for Cliff Harshman, the father of the 2-year-old girls.
Quinn Blackmer, the father of the two older girls, told Montana station KTVQ that he’s furious over the killing, saying “there’s no playbook” for handling the death of one daughter and the near-fatal shooting of another.
“I’m trying my hardest to bury that for a while and to focus on the now, because that anger isn’t going to bring my child back,” Blackmer said.
People who knew the victims told Montana station KRTV that their mother was being treated for mental health issues including postpartum depression before she apparently snapped.
Friends of the Harshman family said the cost of funeral expenses and support for the survivors presents an additional obstacle during an already difficult time. The GoFundMe had raised over $100,000 as of Thursday afternoon.
