Emington mom’s reasons for shooting children unclear
Authorities may never know why a woman in Emington shot her three young children and live-in boyfriend before killing herself, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Days after 30-year-old Sara McMeen was found in the backyard of her rented home next to the bodies of her three children and a semiautomatic pistol, the investigation into her death “has kind of stalled,” said Marvin Rutledge, the chief deputy sheriff of Livingston County.
“I don’t know if we’re ever going to know what her state of mind was that day,” Rutledge said. “She’s not here for us to know what happened that day.”
With funerals scheduled this week for all five dead, investigators will wait before they talk to more family members and friends, Rutledge said. Authorities say no one else is in danger.
No one has come forward in the day since authorities asked Monday for anyone who had recently spoken to McMeen or her boyfriend, 29-year-old Daniel Warren, Rutledge said. Warren’s mother, Wendy Warren, said Tuesday that McMeen appeared to be in good spirits a day before the shootings.
“Personally, I feel there is really no rush to find out if there was a possible motive,” Rutledge said. “Our bottom line is, let’s let family members and friends have time to grieve. There’s nothing to solve here. Again, we know what happened.”
Neighbors in Emington heard a first round of gunshots Friday afternoon, moments after 8-year-old Skyler Lemke and 7-year-old Ian Lemke came home from school on the last day before Christmas break.
McMeen’s next-door neighbor, Annelise Fiedler, has said she came out into her backyard to see McMeen huddled over her 10-month-old baby, Maggie Warren. Fiedler asked if everything was all right.
“She looked at me and said, `No, everything is not all right,”’ Fiedler said. Then, McMeen shot the baby.
McMeen and her three children were found dead in the backyard. Daniel Warren was found dead inside. An autopsy revealed gun residue on McMeen’s hands.
The day before the shooting, McMeen picked out clothes for her children at Wendy Warren’s home. She would take home three bags of clothes.
“She pulled out a sundress and said, `Oh, isn’t Maggie going to look cute in this, this spring,”’ Wendy Warren said in an interview Tuesday.
McMeen and Daniel Warren dated sporadically for about five years, Wendy Warren said. The couple bought wedding rings for an eventual ceremony, but “had a lot of issues they needed to get through first,” she said.
They argued, sometimes over things as small as what to make for dinner. After having the baby, McMeen tried to go back to work for a few weeks before deciding to stay home to raise her three children, Warren said.
“In the five, six years, we had quite a few talks and a lot of good times,” Warren said. “There’s no rhyme or reason to any of it. I don’t understand how it went this way, this fast. It just doesn’t make any sense.”