The parents who were found dead alongside their children last Monday in what authorities are investigating as a murder-suicide had reportedly visited the Davie County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina just hours before the incident occurred, authorities said.
In a press conference on Wednesday 20 April, Davie County Sheriff JD Hartman explained the timeline that he and his office had pieced together in the hours leading up to the fatal 18 April shootings of Aschod Ewing-Meeks, 26, his girlfriend Ashton Brown, 26, and their two children Bella, 4, and Brixx, 8 months.
On 18 April, at approximately 2pm, a passerby driving down the street near the young couple’s home in Davie County saw smoke escaping from the windows and drove to the Cooleemee Fire Department to report it.
About 15 minutes later, first responders arrived on the scene and discovered the bodies of Brown and her infant son in the kitchen, while the couple’s young daughter was found dead shot in the doorway to a bedroom. Ewing-Meeks, the boyfriend and father, was found at the end of the hallway leading to the kitchen.
Authorities reported that all four had been shot and killed and that Ewing-Meeks was still holding the gun in his dead hand.
Earlier that day, at 12:11pm, local authorities captured the family on security footage visiting the sheriff’s office. In that report, they say, the couple spoke with the receptionist and were vague providing details for the intention of their visit but had requested to see a deputy.
The receptionist had reportedly provided a number for the couple to call should they have any concerns, and they left the premises at 12:15pm.
Less than half an hour later, the young mother had dispatched a call to 911 requesting once again to speak with a deputy as she had reportedly said she had safety concerns, according to WGHP’s reporting.
Just before 1pm, a deputy from the office managed to connect with Brown, who promptly passed the phone over to her boyfriend, Ewing-Meeks.
The sheriff’s office says there were then a series of 30-second to two-minute calls placed between the officers and the 26-year-old man, with the latter refusing to provide a location for the authorities to meet at or return to the sheriff’s office. The officers said that Ewing-Meeks reportedly told them that he suspected he was being followed.
A deputy called the couple back twice at 1:06pm, but the phone went straight to voicemail, making this the last contact the authorities would have with the family members alive.
Before the passerby reported the house fire to the authorities, a separate witness told the sheriff’s office they’d seen the couple fighting outside the family home at approximately 2pm, WGHP reported.
The fire, the authorities later determined, had been intentionally set from within the house, allegedly before the father had turned the gun on himself, they said.
Speaking at last Wednesday’s press conference, Sheriff Hartman found himself at a loss for words to describe the tragic incident.
“I’ve seen a lot in 30 years,” he said during the press conference, but this case was “close to one of the worst if not the worst”.
Deputies are investigating the incident as a murder-suicide, as they say they believe Ewing-Meeks was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound and that he first shot and killed his girlfriend and two children.
The Independent reached out to the Davie County Sheriff’s Office for comment regarding the ongoing investigation.
