Mother Shot Her Children to Death

Julie Powers Schenecker, 50, shot and killed her children with a .38 caliber gun in their home.

Police say the grandmother received an email from Schenecker, saying she was depressed.  The grandmother tried to call the family, and could not reach anyone, so she called police.  Officers went to the home in the Ashton Reserve subdivision around 7:45 Friday morning.

After first seeing Schenecker outside covered in blood, police found the woman’s son, Beau, 13, in the garage, and her daughter, Calyx, 16, was found in an upstairs bedroom, both fatally wounded.

According to investigators, Schenecker was driving her son to soccer practice when she allegedly shot him in the head twice for talking back to her. She then drove home and parked her van in the garage, leaving the victim on the front passenger-side seat.

Still armed, she reportedly went inside the house, walked up behind her daughter while she did her homework on the computer, and fired one shot into the back of her head and one shot to her face.

Schenecker was charged with two counts of murder in the first degree.

The children’s father, Colonel Parker Schenecker, is a military intelligence officer assigned to US Central Command (CENTCOM).  He is in his 3rd year at MacDill, and is currently on temporary assignment in the Middle East.