The mother of a 23-year-old man who allegedly killed three members of a family has shared how the 9-year-old survivor ran to her to tell her about the massacre.
Cecelia Sherwin from La Vista in Nebraska has spoken out two days after her son Anthony allegedly shot Sarah Schmidt, Tyler Schmidt, and their daughter Lula, 6, at Maquoketa Caves State Park in Iowa.
She said that her family was camping with a legally-obtained gun when the incident happened.
The Schmidt’s sole survivor, Arlo, ran to Cecelia and told her that a man in black just killed his family.
However, the gunman’s mother refused to believe that her son was behind the triple-murder suicide, saying that Anthony was wearing green and not black.
Speaking to the Omaha World-Herald, Cecelia said: “We think (Anthony) might have sensed trouble and grabbed the gun for safety. We refuse to believe the news.
“We are deeply saddened as he had so much to live for and gave us no indication that anything was wrong.”
Authorities are not sure if the gunman had any connection to the family, and his mother did not make clarifications.
It is not clear if Arlo was also in the same place as his parents and sisters when they were killed.
According to reports, Anthony was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Sarah’s grieving sister Jana Morehouse called the attack “a random act of violence.”
Mitch Mortvedt from the Iowa Department of Public Safety also said that the attack may have been random.
“We don’t know what led up to this, what precipitated it,” he said. “The investigation has not revealed any early interaction between the Schmidt family and him.”
The victims’ grieving family setup a GoFundMe page to help support 9-year-old Arlo.
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