Police in Houston, Texas believe a 29-year-old Houston area woman killed herself after shooting dead her sister, stepfather, another man, and critically injuring her mother on Friday.
Dekitta Holmes, appears to have shot her sister, stepfather, an unidentified male, then her mother before shooting herself. Three of the victims died, but her mother who was left critically injured survived.
The killing spree spanned three locations in the Houston area on Friday and is the most deadly shooting the city has seen this year, according to police.
Authorities identified the shooter as Dekitta Holmes, 29, who is a mother of three children with an education in criminal justice and no history of violence.
Police believe Dekitta first killed her sister Carolyn Holmes, who is a 48-year-old mother-of-two at her home in Fresno, Texas.
She then allegedly drove to her own home in southeast Houston, and shot an unidentified man inside. Still on a rampage she continued a few houses down to her mother Laverne Holmes’ home, striking her with a bullet and fatally shooting her stepfather, 65-year-old Robert Lee Wesley.
Laverne Holmes, 64, is said to be alive but in critical condition.
The killer’s sister Carolyn Holmes,was killed first at her home in Fresno, Texas
Laverne Holmes was also shot by her daughter and is now in critical condition. Her boyfriend Robert Wesley was also shot and killed
Houston police said officers responding to a welfare check at Laverne’s home when they discovered the bodies of the stepfather and alleged shooter around 7:10am.
As detectives were investigating the scene, they were then informed of the shooting at Dekitta’s nearby home, where authorities found the body of a man who she may have been living with her at the time, Click 2 Houston reported.
After responding to the shootings in Houston, police asked Fort Bend County sheriff’s deputies to check Carolyn’s home in Fresno, about 16 miles southwest of Houston. Upon entering through a back door, they found her body inside.
Three people dead on this street in one day came as a shock to the generally quiet neighborhood.
Before turning the gun on herself, Dekitta reportedly called her sister, Carolyn’s daughter. She asked her niece to gather her own children and make sure they weren’t separated. Smart and devoted to her children, that is how friends described Dekitta Holmes who has no criminal history. She was said to be ordinarily peace loving.
“She’s smart, she’s educated, she graduated with honors in college and she made the dean’s list. It’s shocking,” explained John Steward, who had a child with Holmes.
According to her friend Delia Ledet: ‘She told her [niece], that she harmed four people. And that she wanted her children to stay together, please get them and make sure they stay together,’ Ledet said.
‘I’ve never known her to be an aggressive person. She’s not a violent person. You know, so for this to happen, literally, is like jaw-dropping for us.’
The murders come as a shock to the generally quiet neighborhood, where stepfather Robert worked at a nearby convenience store.
Robert’s son said that his father was a staple in the community, and that he believes that an issue regarding Dekitta’s children may have led to her alleged breakdown.
‘Something about her kids,’ he told ABC 13. ‘She got tired of people telling her about her kids so she lost it.’
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