Police in Sachse, Texas, were waiting outside of the house of a woman who had just lost her son in a custody battle when they heard several shots. The father of the child was present and was trying to enter the residence when the incident occurred, The Associated Press reported.

Less than an hour before the shooting, a jury had given Rodney McCall custody of Eryk Hayslett-McCall and terminated the parental rights of his mother, Karen Hayslett-McCall. The father asked the police to meet him at the residence for the transfer.

“I think there was some thought that there would be a problem with the transfer,” Dennis Veach, the police chief of Sachse, told the AP.

After the police forcibly entered the residence they found both the mother and the son dead.

According to WFAA Dallas, the nasty divorce and child custody hearings had affected the state of mind that Karen was in and may have been the cause of the incident.

“I guess she just couldn’t handle the fact that she was losing him,” Joan Irek, a neighbor, told the news source.

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