Wife Was Leaving Man Who Killed 5 Children

By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: April 5, 2009
GRAHAM, Wash. — A man who shot his five children to death in a mobile home near here over the weekend and later killed himself was distraught that his wife was having a relationship with another man, the authorities said Sunday. The man, James Harrison, 34, was found dead in his car around 8:30 a.m. Saturday in Auburn, about 18 miles from here. The car’s engine was still running. Eight hours later, Pierce County sheriff’s deputies went to the mobile home after a relative saw a child lying down inside and no one answered the door. The police found four of Mr. Harrison’s children dead in their bedrooms. The fifth was in a bathroom. “One can only hope that most of them were asleep,” said Detective Ed Troyer of the Sheriff’s Department. Neighbors identified the children as Maxine, 16; Samantha, 14 or 15; Jamie, 11; Heather, 8; and James, 7. The children’s mother, Angela Harrison, Mr. Harrison’s wife, was not in the home at the time of the shootings. Detective Troyer said Ms. Harrison had told her husband on Friday that she was leaving him, prompting Mr. Harrison and his daughter Maxine to track her to a convenience store in Auburn. Ms. Harrison was there with the other man. The father and daughter “confronted her at the convenience store,” Detective Troyer said. “She said she wasn’t coming home and that he was her new boyfriend,” he continued. “Everything went downhill from there.” Detective Troyer said Mr. Harrison shot his children early Saturday. He then drove to an area near the convenience store in Auburn, where he shot himself.
The deaths followed recent mass shootings in Alabama, California, New York and North Carolina. Also on Saturday, a gunman shot and killed three police officers in Pittsburgh. Here, at the Deer Run mobile home park, about an hour’s drive south from Seattle, Sheriff Paul Pastor said late Saturday that the shooting was the worst in the history of Pierce County. “This was not a tragedy,” Sheriff Pastor said. “This was a rotten murder.” A spokeswoman for the State Children’s Administration said Sunday that Mr. Harrison had been found to have physically abused one of the children in February 2007. The spokeswoman, Sherry Hill, said it was not yet clear who had called the agency to the house or whether the state had taken action against Mr. Harrison. Ms. Hill said none of the children were removed from the home. She said the state had also been called to the home on matters “more geared toward neglect” but said she could not explain more. She said the state had not been in contact with the family in the last year. “We still have to get further down into the weeds of this to get to the bottom of it,” Ms. Hill said. Detective Troyer said deputies appeared to have visited the family as part of the 2007 abuse claim. He said Ms. Harrison worked at a smoke shop and Mr. Harrison at the Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma, possibly as a security guard. Neighbors said that the Harrisons largely kept to themselves but argued frequently and loudly, and that Mr. Harrison could be heard threatening his children. Carolyn Bader, who said she lived a few houses down from the Harrisons until January 2008, said she and her husband, Raymond, called the police and state child protection officials more than once because they were worried that the children were being abused. “We’d be in our home with the doors and windows shut,” Ms. Bader said, “and they would be inside their house and we could hear him yelling at the kids.” “It was out of control,” she added. “We would hear kids screaming in the house. I don’t mean playing screaming. I mean screaming.” A neighbor, Ryan Peden, 16, said he had exchanged text messages with Maxine Harrison up until about 11 p.m. Friday. In the last text message he received from Maxine, Ryan said, “Maxine told me, ‘I’m tired of crying. I’m going to bed. I’ll talk to you in the morning.’ ”Ryan said he knew Maxine from talking with her at a school bus stop. He said they were not particularly close but had been in contact more frequently recently. He said that she was a good student but that neither she nor the other children appeared to have been involved with many activities beyond school. Another neighbor, Trisha Lund, said that her son, Robert, 8, sometimes played with James and that the two were in the same second-grade class this year at Orting Primary School. The boys also shared a regular session with a speech therapist at school. Ms. Lund said she and her parents had struggled to explain the shooting to Robert. “I asked him how he felt about it,” Ms. Lund said. “He said, ‘I’m mad at his dad.’ ” were not particularly close but had been in contact more frequently recently. He said that she was a good student but that neither she nor the other children appeared to have been involved with many activities beyond school. Another neighbor, Trisha Lund, said that her son, Robert, 8, sometimes played with James and that the two were in the same second-grade class this year at Orting Primary School. The boys also shared a regular session with a speech therapist at school. Ms. Lund said she and her parents had struggled to explain the shooting to Robert. “I asked him how he felt about it,” Ms. Lund said. “He said, ‘I’m mad at his dad.’ ”