Raquel Labbe knew that something terrible had happened between her son and his wife when she got a call Friday night from Thurston County Sheriff's Office deputies.
They told her, “Well, we have an incident down here,” she said. "And the hair stood up on my head."
Then, through tears, she said, "I just hurt for him, for what he was going through."
Labbe says David and Christina Belcher married when they were both 19. But after 25 years, Christina told her mother-in-law that she was unhappy.
"She let me know that she'd had it," said Labbe.
But David didn't want their marriage to end.
"And my son told me that he still had a lot of hope," she said.
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But last night, that hope turned to anger. Her grandson told her his parents were arguing and his father was drinking.
"My son went into the bedroom," she said. "(My grandson) thought my son was just going to go lay down like he has in the past. And instead he came out with a gun."
Her grandson told her that he and his 12-year-old sister watched their father shoot and kill their mother. He eventually shot himself, too.
"I thought it was bang, bang, bang, bang on the door," said neighbor Don Joy. He heard the sound but didn't recognize it was gunshots.
"And the kids were not banging on your door?" he was asked.
"No, no, no," he said. "When we came out, that's when they came running over from their house to ours."
That's when Joy called 911.
"It's just strange, you know," Joy said. "I've never been around any occurrence like this before. It's just so sad."
Labbe's grandchildren are living with her as they cope with what happened.
"He was my boy," she said, crying. "It had to be so painful for him to do that."
Now her grandchildren are living with her as they cope with what happened.
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