A Maryland child called police to say he heard his parents fighting and might have heard gunshots. When police arrived, they found the boy’s parents dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
Police say Calvin Carnathan, 33, fatally shot his wife Candace, also 33, before turning the gun on himself around 7.30am on Saturday in the White Plains home they share with their three children, all of whom were apparently in the house at the time.
The children, who have not been identified, are currently staying with family. They are a 12-year-old girl and 10- and 7-year-old boys, WJLA reports.
One of the boys called police. He was instructed to take his siblings to the home’s basement to hide.
Police found divorcing couple Calvin and Candace Carnathan, both 33, dead in an upstairs bedroom of their White Plains, Maryland home
One of the couple’s three children called police because he heard gunshots, police say. The children were instructed to hide in the basement
Police say officers arrived within minutes and took the children to safety.
Investigators found the bodies of their parents in an upstairs bedroom of the home on Amberton Court.
Police say they served Calvin with a temporary protective order ordering him to stay away from his wife and children ‘within an hour of receiving it’ from Candace on Friday afternoon.
But Calvin did not abide by the protective order and returned to the home early Saturday.
The protective order was issued by the sheriff office’s Domestic Violence Unit, police said in a press release.
‘We can’t foresee what’s going to happen once a protective order is served. I mean, ideally, they work in the way they’re intended and that is that the person who is served that order, respects the order,’ Charles County Polices spokesperson Diane Richardson said at a press conference.
‘Sometimes that doesn’t happen and it can be a very dangerous time.’
Neighbors told WUSA9 that Calvin and Candace were going through a nasty divorce.
Neighbor Nichola Rollins told WUSA9: ‘Beautiful kids, that lost their mom and dad. It’s heartbreaking, it’s very heartbreaking.’