Did Mom of 3-Month-Old Kill Herself, Husband and Daughter? Mo. Police Investigate Murder-Suicide
Missouri authorities are investigating the deaths of a mother, her husband and the couple’s infant daughter in what police are calling a double-murder-suicide, PEOPLE confirms.
According to the St. Louis police Mary Jo Trokey, 32, was found dead from a gunshot wound in her St. Louis home near her 33-year-old husband, Matthew, and their 3-month-old daughter, Taylor Rose, St. Louis police announced Friday. The deaths are believed to be the result of a murder-suicide, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Captain Eric Larson told reporters.
St. Louis police have declined to publicly comment on who the shooter is.
But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, citing a police source, reports that Mary Jo is believed to be the shooter, and that investigators are tracking her purchase of a gun in the days before the shooting as well as possible mental illness.
The trio were discovered by one of the family’s relatives Friday afternoon. Police were immediately called to the scene, where they were all pronounced dead.
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The shooting appeared to have occurred either late Thursday or early Friday morning, Larson said. There were no signs of forced entry into the couple’s St. Louis Hills home.
The couple were originally from the St. Louis area, a relative who asked not to be identified told the Post-Dispatch. They became engaged in the fall of 2013 and married months later, according to the paper. Both received their bachelor degrees from the University of Missouri, where Mary Jo also earned a masters in social work.
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Rev. Bob Reiker of St. Raphael the Archangel Parish, which the couple attended for nearly two years, told the Post-Dispatch he baptized the couple’s daughter last month.
Reiker tells PEOPLE that Mary Jo worked for two years with the church’s St. Vincent de Paul Society, which worked with low-income people in the neighborhood.
“It’s hard to imagine what happened,” said Reiker, who christened the couple’s daughter. “People are baffled by it. It’s inexplicable how someone could do this to themselves, let alone their little girl.”
