A 55-year-old mother shot her two daughters while they slept amid a custody battle with her ex-husband.
The psychologist from Washington state took the lives of her twin daughters before turning the gun on herself, reports reveal.
According to the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office, the murder-suicide happened on Friday night in Sudden Valley.
Officers found the bodies of Michelle Bodreau Deegan, 55, and her twin daughters, 7, while performing a welfare check at their home.
Deegan’s website shows that she worked as a psychotherapist. “My goal is to teach clients new ways of perceiving their problem, healthy coping behaviors for responding to their problem, and healthy attitudes & communication skills for working with their families, partners, or work environment so they can make changes in their own life,” her site reads.
But before the tragic incident, the mother-of-two posted articles about ‘narcissists’ on her personal and professional Facebook pages.
A friend of Deegan described her as ‘deeply troubled’ and said to local media that they had called child welfare authorities.
One neighbor told KIRO 7: “Really right now, I’m just in shock I can’t believe this happened.”
Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo also said: “It’s a real tragic situation that we’re still investigating, trying to get more information on what might have motivated someone to do something this horrific.”
One of the mother’s friends reacted to the heartbreaking news on Facebook. She wrote: “Michelle was a wonderful woman….she HAD TO HAVE BEEN trying (in an absolutely sick, unimaginably twisted way, obviously) to “protect” the girls from a life with their dad without her.
“She was a kind and warm friend, bright and empathetic, a psychologist with a local practice that helped so many people, including me, and my daughter.”
The friend revealed that Deegan was in a ‘custody battle, with a man she had a domestic violence protection order against.
“Every time she believed her divorce was almost final, she would be dragged into a new frivolous and expensive renegotiation
“She had been bankrupted by litigation, right or wrong, she worried for her girls with their dad…..(the sad irony is not lost on me)……this was a mental health tragedy, not a terrible person.”
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