Paris Harvey shoots Kuaron Harvey St Louis cousin dead then self during livestream at birthday party in what relatives say was an accident while police say it was a murder suicide.
At what cost social media fame? A pair of St Louis cousins have died in what cops called a murder-suicide that was livestreamed at a birthday party.
Investigators identified the pair as 12-year-old girl, Paris Harvey and 14-year-old boy, Kuaron Harvey and say they believe the girl killed the boy then herself KSDK reported.
The pair were live on Instagram around 2 a.m. Friday when a gun that the younger child was playing with went off and killed her cousin — prompting her to then shoot herself, ABC News reported.
Police to date have described the incident as a murder-suicide — while family members dispute the police assessment, claiming it was an ‘accident.’
‘It was no murder. It wasn’t a suicide,’ Paris’ mother, Shinise Harvey, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. ‘It was a freak accident. It happened.’
Just an accident…?
She said relatives who saw the video said the pair was ‘trying to be too hip’ when the shooting happened.
The cousins were found unresponsive at 2:07 a.m. and both were later pronounced dead at the scene.
‘It wasn’t a situation where they were arguing or anything like that,’ said Susan Dyson, the dead girl’s grandmother. ‘They were playing with a gun when they shouldn’t have been. Of course, they shouldn’t have been doing it.
‘I think it just went off,’ Dyson said. ‘It went off by mistake.’
She said the pair were at a birthday party for younger family members when they went into the bathroom to film in front of a mirror. That’s when the tragedy happened.
‘Everybody was getting together to celebrate, and so the younger kids, they got a bed and breakfast,’ Harvey said. ‘They were making a video, and (Paris) was playing with the gun, but it went off and hit him.’
After Kuaron was shot, family members who saw the video said it showed the girl reaching for the gun, with Paris appearing to pick the weapon by the barrel only for the gun appearing to have accidentally gone off again, they said.
Are parents to blame?
Both children were shot in the head.
Harvey said she didn’t know who the gun belonged to or how her daughter got her hands on it.
Family members said Paris, who was one of nine children, was a funny seventh grader who loved getting her hair and nails done and had a beautiful voice. They described Kuaron as a goofy eighth grader who had long been able to do back flips.
The pair were described as being very close, like ‘brother and sister,’ and would pull pranks, rap, or make videos.
‘No matter how good we raise our kids they still are going to venture off,’ Shinise Harvey told the Dispatch.
St. Louis police have not released the results of the department’s investigation.
