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A West Virginia mother gunned down her five young children before burning down her house and turning the gun on herself in December, officials said this week.
Oreanna Myers, 25 left a confessional suicide note in which she wrote she was not strong enough to defeat her “demons,” and apologised for her “evil crime,” law enforcement officials said Thursday.
The horrific Dec. 8 massacre left Myers’ three sons and two stepchildren from her husband’s previous marriage dead.
The children were identified as Shaun Dawson Bumgarner, 7, Riley James Bumgarner, 6, Kian Myers, 4, Aarikyle Nova Myers, 3, and Haiken Jirachi Myers, 1.
Myers was suffering from depression and was upset that her husband had been staying with his father for two weeks instead of with her and the children at their home outside Williamsburg, in West Virginia, due to logistical transportation issues, Greenbrier County Sheriff Bruce Sloan said Thursday.
The grim timeline began when Myers picked up two of her sons from the bus stop at the end of the school day on the December Tuesday with a red line drawn across her face.
When asked by her children if she was bleeding, Myers replied that she drew it, witnesses told investigators.
An hour later, firefighters responded to a 911 call at the family home and found the house fully engulfed in flames.
After extinguishing the flames, the bodies of the young victims were found inside the home with shotgun wounds to the head.
Myers was found dead outside the home near a picnic table, with the murder weapon lying by her side.
Officials said the weapon was not automatic, meaning Myers had to reload the shotgun before each deadly blast.
Sloan said text messages sent in the week before the tragedy between Myers and her husband showed that Bumgarner’s work-related absence was the source of a heated disagreement between the couple.
“Don’t worry about this piece of [expletive] anymore. You’ll have nothing to come back to but to corpse [sic]. You choosing money over my depression shows I am [expletive]. No one cares why should I?” read one of the desperate texts Myers sent to her husband.
“Money will come and go, once I go there’s no replacing me. I beg and cry for help but never get it. It’s my mental health that needs tending to – help me – I do not care anymore.”
Myers left several notes to her husband denoting her guilt.
“I’m so sorry Brian,” one read. “I was not strong enough for you or this family. My head is so (expletive). I’m sorry for my evil crime. I was not strong enough to fight these demons, Snap. Crunch, Boom. So depressed. Heart numb. Soul completely shattered. I am sorry I failed you. I am sorry I failed our handsome boys. I am so sorry I was not strong enough. OAM.”
“I had shot all of the boys in the head. I had set house on fire. I had shot myself in the head. I’m sorry,” she wrote.
“Mental health is serious. I hope one day someone will help others like me. Mental health is not to joke about or taken lightly. When someone begs, pleads, cries out for help, please help them. You just might save a life or more lives. Thank you, OAM.”
Sloan said he was unaware whether Myers was being treated for mental illness.
According to a heartbreaking joint obituary for four of the young victims, Shaun was “interested in space and wanted to be an astronaut.”
Riley was a budding musician who “was learning to play the piano and the ukulele.”
Aarikyle was a young artist who “loved Ninja Turtles and superheroes.”
One-year-old Haiken was “spoiled by all and loved driving his toy cars.”
Sloane said the case is closed and is urging family members of anyone suffering from depression or expressing suicidal thoughts to seek help immediately.
This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced here with permission
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