Verdigris murder suicide: Oklahoma mom, Brandy McCaslin, shoots 3 kids dead then self during police stand off. Despite struggling with mental health issues the mom was recently awarded unsupervised visitation with her children.
A woman and her three children were found dead in an Oklahoma home Thursday night in what authorities believe was a murder-suicide following an hours long standoff with police.
The names of the victims weren’t immediately released. Social media identified the mother as Brandy McCaslin.
The standoff began in the small town of Verdigris, a suburb east of Tulsa, when a police officer driving along the street saw fireworks coming from inside the garage of a house, according to Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Hunter McKee.
Suicidal mom locked another woman in garage with two children
‘It was at that time that officer knew that there was something wrong, went to investigate, called for backup,’ McKee said according to NBC News.
The officer saw what Police Chief Jack Shackleford described as a Roman candle firework and found a woman and two children locked in a garage.
The trapped woman had been using the Roman candle to try to attract attention to get help, Shackelford said.
The woman said she had taken another child to the home for a supervised visit and was met by an armed woman, Brandy McCaslin, who took the child and locked her and two other children who were with her in the garage, Shackleford said.
After police arrived, the woman and the two children with her were able to get out, Shackleford said. The woman said they were held hostage by McCaslin and that there were children in the home.
Suicidal mom struggled with mental health woes and family discord applied and received unsupervised visitation rights
Several agencies surrounded the house, including a SWAT team from the Cherokee Nation.
Following a three-hour standoff with no response from inside the house, McKee said officers entered the home and found the alleged Brandy McCaslin and three children dead with gunshot wounds.
The three children are believed to range in age from several months to around 11 years old. The children were identified as Billy, Noe, and Bryce.
A handgun was found at the scene and the killings are being investigated as a murder-suicide, authorities said.
Posted Felicia Hall on Facebook, Friday afternoon, ‘Oklahoma DHS failed him and his 3 children when she asked for unsupervised visits and they granted her request knowing she had issues.’
Tulsa World reported a friend of the family, Lucretia Pitre, who arrived at the scene late Thursday said McCaslin was the mother of the three children who died.
Pitre said two days prior the mother had posted a photo of herself and her baby on Facebook, saying that ‘she was so happy,’ but ‘I could tell by her face that she was struggling with something. I mean she just looked sad.’
Pitre said the mother had faced a great deal of loss in recent years, including the deaths of her sister, her mother, her uncle and her grandparents. The deaths had involved cancer, suicide and a drug overdose, she said.
‘This is heartbreaking,’ Pitre told Tulsa World. ‘This family’s seen a lot, you know. Mental health has I feel like just really, really, really affected this family when it comes to that and substance abuse.’
Adding, ‘I just can’t believe she took the kids. I don’t know. I just don’t understand it.’
Shackleford said officers went to the home several times in the past on domestic and mental health calls. It was not immediately known how the two women knew each other.
