Neighbors in shock after seemingly ‘super happy’ woman, children found dead
By Brian Carlson
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WEST HAVEN, Weber County (KSL-TV) — A neighborhood is waiting for answers after the deaths of a mother and three young children Tuesday. They were found dead, with gunshot wounds, inside a car in front of the woman’s West Haven home. It’s left many wondering why.
Seeing police covering the street responding to their deaths left the West Haven neighborhood in shock.
“It just blows me away. She seemed super happy, a very outgoing gal,” said Darren King, the family’s next-door neighbor. “Super nice. The kids were just fun to be around.”
An investigator takes photographs as she examines a vehicle at a scene where four people were found dead in the Haven Parkway neighborhood of West Haven on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. (Isaac Hale, Deseret News)
Weber County sheriff’s deputies did not confirm how the woman and children died, except that each had been shot.
“We have four dead people. We have to do an investigation to figure out how it led to that,” said Lt. Terance Lavely with the Weber County Sheriff’s Office.
Police towed the car away early Wednesday morning, and are waiting on autopsy results before clearing the scene.
Relatives of the woman and children came by to learn what happened, but all of them were too shaken to share their grief on camera. King lived next door and said he’s been close with the mother’s family since they moved in.
“They would usually gather on Sunday night for dinner,” he said. “She would come over, she’d bring food over — whatever they were cooking. Just a sweet family.”
King said she recently moved back into the home to live with her father, whose wife passed away this summer. He said he couldn’t imagine the added pain her father and the rest of the family must be going through.
“After he lost his wife of 50 years, and now to lose his daughter and his grandkids,” King said. “His grandkids were his life.”
Other neighbors, like Taira Jacobsen and Laura Watkins, echoed King’s comments by saying the woman and children were friendly.
“Oh, she was so nice. She would always make it a point to come and wave, and when we passed by and talked at the mailbox, she was super nice, just super nice,” Jacobsen said.
“They normally have big family barbeques and they are always outside. Just kind of eerie that we didn’t see anything,” Watkins added
As of Wednesday, King and others in the neighborhood were still waiting for answers to bring closure to the shocking tragedy. Police have not confirmed the relationship between the woman and the three children to KSL TV.
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