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Gun Laws don't stop the criminals!
daddo
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Horror as family shot dead
by Hugh Dougherty, Evening Standard
A man brought terror to a quiet country village when he shot dead his young daughter and estranged wife before killing himself.
Shocking scene: police at the site of the double murder and suicide
The man killed the woman as she sat in a car outside her home, fired at the nearby girl and turned the gun on himself in an apparent double murder-suicide yesterday evening in the Somerset village of Horton, near Ilminster.
The volley of shots blew out the windscreen of the dead woman's car and caused children playing nearby to run screaming for help, before the man shot himself in a nearby back garden. Police say the deaths happened "in a matter of minutes".
Today villagers said the woman and her daughter, believed to be no more than five years old, had moved into the small estate in the village within the last few months.
John Crean, 62, said: "I have been told it concerns an estranged husband, the wife he is separated from and her child."
Neighbours had seen the girl playing in the street on her bicycle just minutes before the shots rang out at about 6.15pm. Ken White, 59, who runs a nearby caravan park, said children who witnessed the shootings had been left traumatised.
Mr White said: "A couple of eightyearolds were playing outside and they saw this man come up through the estate. They watched as he shot into the car at the woman. He then fired at the little girl who was nearby and they later heard another shot which everyone assumes was the man turning the gun on himself.
"Everyone is assuming it must have been a domestic of some sort, but whatever the case, it is tragic."
Nina Jerez, who runs the village post office less than 200 yards from where the three bodies were found, said her husband had heard the gunfire: "At first he thought it was children playing and then he realised the shots were a bit too loud for that and he heard someone calling out, which was parents calling for their children to come in."
Police sealed off the side road where the killing happened, and were today continuing a painstaking search for forensic evidence.
A gun removed from the scene was described as a "rifle or shotgun" by police, and one man who lived in the village said he believed it was a Second World War Lee Enfield .303 rifle, the type issued to all British soldiers during the war.
The village, 10 miles from Taunton at the foot of the Black Down Hills, has a population of 600 people, a single shop inside the post office, a church and a pub which is closed for refurbishment.
Marie Crean, 54, a care assistant at a local nursing home, said: "It is a quiet and happy village normally. There is never any crime round here. There was a burglary about four or five years ago, but everybody-helps each other and we all look out for suspicious characters. People will be very shocked."
The police officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Trevor Margenout, said children would be receiving support after witnessing the shootings.
"The police and the community will be working to provide them with some support in the coming days and weeks," he said.
He also appealed for witnesses to the shooting to come forward, including motorists using the village as a short-cut between the nearby towns of Ilminster and Chard to get to Taunton: "There may have been people passing through the village who have witnessed part of this incident."
by Hugh Dougherty, Evening Standard
A man brought terror to a quiet country village when he shot dead his young daughter and estranged wife before killing himself.
Shocking scene: police at the site of the double murder and suicide
The man killed the woman as she sat in a car outside her home, fired at the nearby girl and turned the gun on himself in an apparent double murder-suicide yesterday evening in the Somerset village of Horton, near Ilminster.
The volley of shots blew out the windscreen of the dead woman's car and caused children playing nearby to run screaming for help, before the man shot himself in a nearby back garden. Police say the deaths happened "in a matter of minutes".
Today villagers said the woman and her daughter, believed to be no more than five years old, had moved into the small estate in the village within the last few months.
John Crean, 62, said: "I have been told it concerns an estranged husband, the wife he is separated from and her child."
Neighbours had seen the girl playing in the street on her bicycle just minutes before the shots rang out at about 6.15pm. Ken White, 59, who runs a nearby caravan park, said children who witnessed the shootings had been left traumatised.
Mr White said: "A couple of eightyearolds were playing outside and they saw this man come up through the estate. They watched as he shot into the car at the woman. He then fired at the little girl who was nearby and they later heard another shot which everyone assumes was the man turning the gun on himself.
"Everyone is assuming it must have been a domestic of some sort, but whatever the case, it is tragic."
Nina Jerez, who runs the village post office less than 200 yards from where the three bodies were found, said her husband had heard the gunfire: "At first he thought it was children playing and then he realised the shots were a bit too loud for that and he heard someone calling out, which was parents calling for their children to come in."
Police sealed off the side road where the killing happened, and were today continuing a painstaking search for forensic evidence.
A gun removed from the scene was described as a "rifle or shotgun" by police, and one man who lived in the village said he believed it was a Second World War Lee Enfield .303 rifle, the type issued to all British soldiers during the war.
The village, 10 miles from Taunton at the foot of the Black Down Hills, has a population of 600 people, a single shop inside the post office, a church and a pub which is closed for refurbishment.
Marie Crean, 54, a care assistant at a local nursing home, said: "It is a quiet and happy village normally. There is never any crime round here. There was a burglary about four or five years ago, but everybody-helps each other and we all look out for suspicious characters. People will be very shocked."
The police officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Trevor Margenout, said children would be receiving support after witnessing the shootings.
"The police and the community will be working to provide them with some support in the coming days and weeks," he said.
He also appealed for witnesses to the shooting to come forward, including motorists using the village as a short-cut between the nearby towns of Ilminster and Chard to get to Taunton: "There may have been people passing through the village who have witnessed part of this incident."
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