Texas shooting kills 6, including 4 kids

SPRING, Texas — A father opened fire at a suburban Houston home Wednesday, killing four of his children as well as two adults who were with them, and critically wounding his 15-year-old daughter, authorities said.

The teenager was able to call 911 and later warned deputies that her father planned to go to her grandparents’ home to kill them, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. The suspected gunman eventually surrendered after a three-hour standoff with deputies who had cornered him in a nearby cul-de-sac.

The sheriff’s department said precinct deputy constables were called to the house in the northern Houston suburb of Spring about 6 p.m. Wednesday and found two adults and three children dead. Another child later died at a hospital.

Killed were two boys, ages 4 and 14; two girls, ages 7 and 9; a 39-year-old man; and a 33-year-old woman, said Gilliland. The gunman and his wife are estranged, and she was out of state, Gilliland said. Two of the dead children were adopted, he said.

“These children were all their children,” he said of the suspect and his wife.

“It appears this stems from a domestic issue with a breakup in the family, from what our witness has told us,” Assistant Chief Deputy Constable Mark Herman of the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office told reporters. He did not explain further.

Authorities also did not release the identities of the victims or the suspect, nor did they say whether the adults who were killed were related to the children or their father.