The Brief<\/p>\n
A custody dispute in Upper Darby Township led to a tragic shooting.<\/p>\n
A woman was killed, and a man critically injured in an apparent murder-suicide attempt.<\/p>\n
Three children witnessed the incident and are left without their mother.<\/p>\n
UPPER DARBY TWP., Pa. – A custody exchange turned deadly in Upper Darby Township, leaving three children without their mother.<\/p>\n
What we know<\/p>\n
Upper Darby Police found a female and male with gunshot wounds on the 200 block of Copley Road on Friday at around noon.<\/p>\n
Officers found a woman with a gunshot wound behind the vehicle and a man with a gunshot wound on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Timothy M. Bernhardt with the Upper Darby Township Police Department said this was an attempt at murder-suicide, and detailed the scene responding officers arrived at.<\/p>\n
The backstory<\/p>\n
The shooting stemmed from a custody dispute, police say.<\/p>\n
The 45-year-old man had the children for Christmas, and the 34-year-old woman was there to pick them up.<\/p>\n
An argument ensued, leading the man to shoot the woman before turning the gun on himself.<\/p>\n
Local perspective<\/p>\n
Copley Road resident Abu Chowdhury saw everything unfold in real time as officers took the female from behind the wheel and tried life-saving measures that were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, he said his area sees its share of crime.<\/p>\n
He expressed concern over the frequency of such incidents.<\/p>\n
“Last 15 days before there was one car shot that spot. This is the second time,” said Chowdhury. “A couple more things have happened, like even our car was broken into.”<\/p>\n
Impact on the children<\/p>\n
Bernhardt said there was a custody order in place, and the male, 45, had the children yesterday for Christmas.<\/p>\n
“They got into some type of an argument when the male pulled out a gun and fired two shots at the female,” said Bernhardt. “He got out of the vehicle and shot himself one time.”<\/p>\n
All three minors to witness the shooting were her children.<\/p>\n
The man shares two children with the victim.<\/p>\n
“The three children who were in the back of the car, what words can I say what they\u2019ve experienced,” said Bernhardt. “The trauma that they are now going through to see mom and dad arguing and dad pull out a gun and fire two shots and kill their mother. So we have them here and we\u2019re working with them. We\u2019ll get trauma support for them.”<\/p>\n
“I feel bad for them for even, you know, witnessing that from their point of view,” said resident Jordan McGee.<\/p>\n
Bernhardt said if the father survives, he will be charged. The father’s condition remains critical.<\/p>\n
No names have been released at this time.<\/p>\n
The Source<\/p>\n
Information from the Upper Darby Police Department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief A custody dispute in Upper Darby Township led to a tragic shooting. A woman was killed,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[38175,38177,38174,15114,38176,147,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-73542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-abu-chowdhury","tag-apparent-murder-suicide","tag-custody-dispute","tag-gunshot-wounds","tag-m-bernhardt","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}