{"id":812041,"date":"2026-08-13T08:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T08:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/812041\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T08:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T08:04:14","slug":"police-2-adults-1-child-dead-in-suspected-murder-suicide-at-hopkins-daycare-case-linked-to-burnsville-homicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/812041\/","title":{"rendered":"Police: 2 adults, 1 child dead in suspected murder-suicide at Hopkins daycare; case linked to Burnsville homicide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police say a man, woman and child are dead in what is being investigated as a potential murder-suicide Wednesday morning at an in-home daycare in Hopkins that officials say is linked to a homicide in Burnsville.<\/p>\n

Hopkins Police Chief Brent Johnson said a parent dropping their child off at the residence on the 200 block of Tyler Avenue North reported a stabbing just after 9 a.m.<\/p>\n

Inside, police found a 41-year-old man dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, a 41-year-old woman dead from apparent stab wounds and a 7-year-old girl also dead from stab wounds. Chief Johnson said the three were all part of the same family.<\/p>\n

Investigators later linked the tragedy to another homicide in Burnsville.<\/a> In that incident, the victim, a 78-year-old woman, is believed to be \u201ca close family relative\u201d of the suspect in the Hopkins tragedy, police say.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Police discuss link between Hopkins murder-suicide and Burnsville homicide.Details of Hopkins Incident<\/p>\n

In addition to the three people found dead, police found six children inside the Hopkins daycare, all described as \u201cvery young\u201d and physically unharmed. They are all back with their families, Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Johnson said the adults found dead are likely the owners of the daycare, and preliminary evidence indicates the deceased man was the \u201cperpetrator.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this time, police say there isn\u2019t any ongoing threat to the community, but the investigation remains active. Investigators are still working to determine the man\u2019s motive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no worse scenario than this,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cYou drop your children off somewhere you think is safe and you get that phone call.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reaction<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a tight-knit community,\u201d Hopkins Mayor Patrick Hanlon said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have strangers in Hopkins, we all know each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanlon added, \u201cThis city has shed a lot of tears today over this incident, over this immense loss. It\u2019s tough to put into words what this loss is for our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

This morning, a police officer came to her door asking if she heard anything at the home and couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my God, those poor kids. It\u2019s just trauma, it\u2019s pure\u2026 I just can\u2019t imagine,\u201d said Jean Healey, who also knew the couple who ran the daycare.<\/p>\n

A couple also told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS they were just considering sending their kids to the daycare.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a shocker of hearing what happened,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

The chief said this appeared to be an isolated incident and there was no further threat to the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just shocking,\u201d Healey added. \u201cShe seemed very friendly. He seemed fine. I just can\u2019t believe that could happen in my neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investigators were still working to determine the nature of the injuries and what types of weapons were involved.<\/p>\n

Burnsville reaction and childcare records<\/p>\n

Police investigators were still working Wednesday evening looking for clues into the stabbing death of the 78-year-old woman in Burnsville.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds so crazy because It\u2019s a quiet neighborhood, period,\u201d says Kelli Heitkamp, who lives across the street and saw police arriving around 12:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

Neighbors who didn\u2019t appear on camera say the 78-year-old and suspect would take walks together in the area, and that he had lived at her house for a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. Go home and hug your family at night. I\u2019m going to call my daughter when I go back in. I\u2019m going to call my daughter when I get back in. I\u2019m going to FaceTime her and my grandbabies,\u201d Heitkamp said.<\/p>\n

Police have not shared a timeline between the two crime scenes but say they\u2019ve had no reports of previous issues at the daycare.<\/p>\n

State records show that Brown Bear Childcare has an active license to care for 10 kids, valid through the end of the year, with no violations.<\/p>\n

Heitkamp says her own daughter isn\u2019t using daycare for the grandchildren, but she says she personally had no problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter was in home daycare until she was in grade school and she went to an after-school program. But other than that, she was,\u201d Heitkamp said. \u201cI didn\u2019t worry about her being at daycare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanlon says other daycares in the area have stepped up and are offering services for the six children starting Thursday.<\/p>\n

Authorities say the identities of the victims likely won\u2019t be released for at least several days.<\/p>\n

During his 2027 budget address on Wednesday morning, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey offered his thoughts and prayers to those involved, saying further that Minneapolis will help Hopkins in anyway possible.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Police discuss Hopkins murder-suicide at in-home daycare.\"\"<\/p>\n

If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse, several resources are available to offer help. For immediate help, contact:<\/p>\n

More than 12 million people just in the U.S. are affected by domestic violence every year, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.<\/p>\n

The organizations listed above can help connect victims to resources like safe shelter, advocacy, legal help and support groups.<\/p>\n

The National Domestic Violence Hotline also offers tips for identifying abuse and supporting victims of abuse. CLICK HERE<\/a> to see those.<\/p>\n

Other organizations that can help include:<\/p>\n

Minnesota also has a list of many other resources for victims of crimes that can be found HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0Burnsville<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Crime<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Homicide<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Homicide Investigation<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Hopkins<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Joe Mazan<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Ren\u00e9e Cooper<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Richard Reeve<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police say a man, woman and child are dead in what is being investigated as a potential murder-suicide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,344608,3071,694,46485,14912,25396,3,256171,6398,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-812041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-burnsville","tag-crime","tag-homicide","tag-homicide-investigation","tag-hopkins","tag-joe-mazan","tag-news","tag-renee-cooper","tag-richard-reeve","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}