Girl, 12, calls cops after dad shoots her in head

A New York man shot dead his seven-year-old daughter, his girlfriend and her mother inside their home on Saturday before taking his own life, police said.

Jonathon Walker, 34, also critically wounded his 12-year-old daughter in the shooting in the borough of Queens, close to John F. Kennedy International Airport, Reuters reported.

He apparently marched from room to room, shooting his two daughters, his girlfriend and her mother in the head.

The daughter who survived managed to call 911, open the door for police and talk to them for about 15 minutes despite having been shot in the head and having the bullet exit through her eye, NY Post reported.

The girl was rushed to a medical centre and was in stable condition.

"What I did, I cannot come back from," Walker allegedly told his brother over the phone after the tragedy, said the police.

Police officers arrived at the home at around 5.40 am and found four people shot in an incident that "underscores the human toll and horror of domestic violence", Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.

Walker killed his daughter Kayla, the girl's mother Shantai Hale, 31, and Ms Hale's mother, Ms Viola Warren, 62.

Armed with a .45-calibre handgun, he fled in a sports utility vehicle, parked on a quiet stretch of road in Queens and killed himself, police said.

MYSTERY OVER MOTIVE

It is unclear what led to the rampage.

Ms Warren's brother Wendall Warren told NY Post: "Nobody knows why. He drank, but he had no drinking problem. There was no indication of a drinking problem and there was no indication of anything that could make him remotely do this, none whatsoever. "It just came out of nowhere."

Records show that in 2005 and 2006, the family had two minor domestic incidents, but nothing after that, said New York police Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.

"We have very little evidence of discord in the family," he said.

Local media said that Walker had been a security guard and had once played professional basketball in Portugal

This article was first published on Jan 26, 2015.
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