A Utah mother who police believe was shot and killed by her husband with his three children was a refugee who fled violence myanmar Relatives said Thursday that she was dreaming of thriving with her family in America.
Police believe the husband killed his family before shooting himself and a teenage son was fatally wounded.
The bodies of 38-year-old Boo Meh, her daughters Christina Rhee, 8, Justice Meh, 2, and son Bo Rhee, 11, were found Tuesday in their home in West Valley City, a Salt Lake City suburb. A handgun was found beneath the 42-year-old father, De Reh, leading police to believe it was a murder-suicide, but no evidence of a motive has been released.
One child, 17-year-old Sha Ray, survived being shot in the head and remains hospitalized with a serious brain injury, police said.
Boo Meah, a member of Myanmar's Karenni ethnic minority, fled what her relatives described as ethnic cleansing in the Southeast Asian nation about 10 years ago. She and her young family lived in a refugee camp in Thailand for a time, then came to the United States “with very little more than the clothes on their backs,” the family said in a statement. statement,
She taught herself English, learned new skills and worked hard to support her growing family, achieving a way of life “beyond the nightmare of her former country or refugee camp”, the family said.
Her family said, “For reasons we cannot understand, her husband took away the safety and life of her and her children.”
Police believe the shooting happened over the weekend.
Police initially went to the home on Monday night after a relative asked them to check on the family, but they found no signs of any emergency that would allow them to enter the home. Relatives went to the home on Tuesday, found Sha Reh injured in the garage and called police, who found the bodies inside the home.
In their statement, relatives described Sha Reh as their hero and said he faced a “long and complicated road to recovery.” An online fundraiser is collecting donations to pay for his care and help him go to college.
Police spokeswoman Roxanne Vainuku said at a news conference Wednesday that neighbors did not report any shootings in the area over the weekend. The family had no previous reports of domestic violence or other disturbances.
a neighbor spoke to CBS affiliate KUTV About the shock he received.
“How can a father shoot his children?” neighbor Mike Webster told the station. “I don't understand that concept at all. I can just see that poor two-year-old girl looking at her father.”
The Utah case is the 38th mass murder in the United States this year. At least 165 people have died in the U.S. this year in mass killings, defined by the FBI as cases in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer.
Mark Barden, whose child was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, urged Utah lawmakers to pass a red flag law after the incident in Utah, KUTV. informed,
“When it is recognized that a person is in crisis, measures to safely and temporarily remove firearms from their possession have proven to save lives,” Barden said.