A four-year-old girl in the US has used her deceased grandfather’s phone to call for help after finding him and her parents dead, police say.
According to PEOPLE, the young girl woke up to gunshots on Thursday to discover her mother, 27-year-old-Marie Ann Leonetti, her father, 26-year-old Jacob Thayer, and her grandfather, 60-year Richard Thayer, gunned down in their California home.
Authorities are treating the horrific scene as a murder-suicide, alleging Thayer shot his father and Leonetti before turning the gun on himself.
The four-year-old girl managed to call her grandmother, who then phoned police at around 3.05am. On arrival, police found the little girl safe outside the home with her grandmother and three bodies inside.
“I’m really sad,” Leonetti’s cousin Amanda Gold said of the tragic events, KCRA reports. “It’s a really sad thing. But I’m also just in shock, like nobody saw it coming.”
Courtney Herrick shared on Facebook: “I literally just talked to you… I’m in shock… I love you so much Marie Leonetti I can’t believe I’ll never hear you laugh again… my heart is shattered,
The investigation continues.
