A Bucks County father shot and killed his 8-year-old son in what police are considering a murder-suicide on Thursday night.
When Lower Makefield Township Police went to conduct a wellness check at a home along the 500 block of Heritage Oak Drive just after 6 p.m., officers found an unresponsive boy lying on the living room floor,Both suffered from gun shot wounds and were pronounced dead, according to police.Lower Makefield Police Chief Kenneth Coluzzi said no one was home at the time of shooting, and that officers on the scene recovered a handgun.
“From what we could determine from the crime scene it’s clear that it’s a murder-suicide at this point,” Coluzzi told reporters. “A father … shot his son.” Coluzzi said that the boy attended school in the Pennsbury School District, but said police would not release the identities of the father and son until all family members were notified. Coluzzi said the school district plans to offer grief counseling for the boy’s classmates.
Officers are speaking with the mother to determine if domestic problems preceded the shooting and speaking with neighbors, many of whom are still processing the“We just had a lot of tragedy in Upper Makefield and Lower Makefield with the flooding and the children being lost,” Coluzzi said. “Now we have another tragedy that we’re dealing with.”