Charles Dalton Jr. was in ninth grade. He was on the freshman football team at Linganore High School in Ijamsville. He was also a junior firefighter at the Mt. Airy Volunteer Fire Company, the same company that responded to his home Friday.
Posted on 09/26/2009 10:28:58 PM PDT by incredulous joe
MOUNT AIRY, Md. — A home-improvement worker and school janitor who apparently was struggling to survive the recession killed his sleeping wife and two children before turning the 12-gauge shotgun on himself, Maryland State Police said Saturday.
Charles L. Dalton, 38, left no suicide note and police haven’t clearly identified a motive for the murders, spokesman Greg Shipley said.
“It is possible that financial difficulties were part of the motive,” he said.
Police announced the findings one day after the bodies of Dalton, his wife Jennifer, 37, and their children Charles Jr., 14, and Emmaline, 7, were found in their home in Mount Airy, a Fredrick County town of 8,800 about 30 miles west of Baltimore.
Shipley said the bodies of Jennifer Dalton and the children were found in their beds. Charles Dalton’s body was lying in the master bedroom next to the bed, he said.
Dalton also fatally shot the family’s beagle in a crate inside the home’s front door, he said.
Investigators believe the deaths occurred Thursday night or Friday morning. Shipley said Jennifer Dalton failed to report to her part-time job at a veterinary hospital in Damascus, prompting co-workers to try to contact her starting at 8:30 a.m. Friday. No one answered their calls or came to the door.
A family friend called 911 at about 5:30 p.m. Friday after spotting a body through a rear window of the split-level house, Shipley said.
Charles Dalton was a self-employed cabinet installer who ran his business, Imagine Millwork, out of his home. He also worked the night shift as a maintenance worker for Montgomery County schools, Shipley said.
The house, on a corner lot in a modest, middle-class neighborhood, had a “for sale” sign out front. It had been on the market for at least a year, neighbors said.
Kenneth Matthews, a security worker who also runs a carpet-cleaning business out of his home a few doors down, said Dalton had been scraping by in the weak economy.
“He was struggling, just like me,” Matthews said. “We’re probably running about 40 percent of where we were last year.”
Matthews said the Daltons were quiet, churchgoing people who kept largely to themselves. A whitewashed rock in front of the house bore the phrases: “We will serve the Lord” and “God is our rock.”
Neighbors and others placed stuffed animals and flowers on the front porch, near the children’s bicycles and a scooter, to remember the family.
“We’re just showing our respect,” said Erica Mason, who had walked over with her husband and two young daughters to place a white teddy bear on the property. She said the deaths hit “pretty close to home — we’re a family of four.”
Tanya Miller came from her house a half-mile away. “I just wanted to walk around and say a prayer for them,” she said.
There have been at least four other family murder-suicides in Maryland in the last 2 1/2 years — three involving Frederick County residents.
In April, a Middletown man killed his wife and their three children before shooting himself.
On Thanksgiving 2007, a Frederick man fatally shot his ex-wife and their three children during a custody hand-off in a Montgomery County park.
In April 2007, a Montgomery County father hanged his two young children before committing suicide in rural Boyds.
In March 2007, a Frederick man killed his wife and four children before hanging himself in the family’s town house.
I can't imagine what might drive a person to such a hopeless extreme? Prayers for the family.
Heartbreaking Mid-Maryland PING for prayers.
I was from this area as well - do you know which church they went to?
Prayers up.
Maryland gets more than its share of these type of tragedies. There was a murder / suicide at the Shearton near me not too long ago. Very tragic .
This is about the 4th family killed by a family member in the past two weeks. Is it the economy?
Prayers up for this family.How very sad.
Well, that's a convenient excuse for the Democrat victim-cult "mainstream media", but I ain't buying. Anybody that does what this selfish sociopath did is sick from the git-go, regardless of "the economy".
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/photos/09/09/27/95781.jpg
Charles Dalton was a night maintenance worker for Montgomery County schools and that he ran his own carpentry and cabinetmaking business. State records list the business as Imagine Millwork, which Dun and Bradstreet describes as a private company with two employees and estimated annual sales of $400,000.
Johnson is an electrician who worked on various jobs over the past year and a half for Dalton, a cabinetmaker who ran his own business, Imagine Millwork.
Johnson said Dalton always paid him on time and did not seem to be in financial trouble.
Dalton had mentioned he had to lower the asking price on his home, and that he might lose money on a short sale, Johnson said. About a week ago, Johnson said Dalton told him that he’d found a place to rent somewhere on Md. 144 and that he’d found another job and was considering giving up his own business.
According to records from the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation, the Daltons bought the Contour Road home in March 2005 for $304,000.
As of 2007, the property had a base assessment value of $371,140.
Police identified the four people found dead inside the house Saturday.
They were Charles L. Dalton Sr., 38, the husband and father, his wife, Jennifer A. Dalton, 37, their son, Charles L. Dalton Jr., 14, and their daughter, Emmaline E. Dalton, 7, according to state police.
Each died from a single gunshot wound to the head, police said.
Investigators think Charles Dalton killed his family as they slept before shooting himself. Police found a .12-gauge pump shotgun next to his body.
Troopers found their bodies about 5:30 p.m. Friday, according to state police spokeswoman Greg Shipley.
Investigators said Jennifer Dalton’s body was found in bed in the master bedroom. Police found her husband next to the bed.
Troopers found Charles Dalton Jr. in his bed. Emmaline Dalton was found in her bed in a separate bedroom, police said.
Chris Bond, another neighbor, said Emmaline Dalton and his daughter were friends and played at each other’s houses on occasion.
Bond said he spoke with Dalton about a week ago while Dalton was mowing his yard.
Dalton told him he’d had an offer on the house and wanted to move into a new place with a bigger space for his workshop.
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?storyID=95781
Charles Dalton Jr. was in ninth grade. He was on the freshman football team at Linganore High School in Ijamsville. He was also a junior firefighter at the Mt. Airy Volunteer Fire Company, the same company that responded to his home Friday.
“Kenneth Matthews, a security worker who also runs a carpet-cleaning business out of his home a few doors down, said Dalton had been scraping by in the weak economy.
““He was struggling, just like me,” Matthews said. “We’re probably running about 40 percent of where we were last year.” “
Dreadful. RIP.
Next time one of these jerks decide to take out his whole family I hope he takes himself out first.
I have no sympathy for the killer/suicide “victim”.
Sad for the rest.
Praying. What can we do to identify and help people in this situation? This is really sad. God help us if the dollar is replaced, then it will get unbelievably difficult.
I'm irritated by the press, who immediately delve into the family's financial situation. The assumption is that these incidents are caused by Obama's economy. Lots of us are having trouble financially, but we're not about to go on a killing spree.
It was learned that the guy who did this a few months ago in Middletown, MD, was on a cocktail of psychiatric drugs. But the media's emphasis was on their high debt load. These incidents are tragic enough without having to bear some subtle advancement of the leftist's agenda. It's creepy and tacky.
My prayers to the family, their friends and our neighbors here in Frederick County, MD.
“Anybody that does what this selfish sociopath did is sick from the git-go, regardless of “the economy”.
Hey...you are absolutely right on. Nothing I have ever read in the history of the great depression ever mentioned a rise in such heinous acts. Suicide by rich guys...maybe, but not this. Its probably more related to a lot of missing values related to the sociocultural standards which are all pervasive today.
No, I don’t.
I’m sure it will be in the obit.
I’m sorry for you, too, Joe.
My neighbor blew his head off last summer and although we weren’t exactly tight, it’s been hanging over me emotionally ever since.
Not just Maryland, but the 4th one in this region in the last few years.
The one in Middletown was ghastly! The looks of the police and first responders to that one pretty much said it all. It was disturbing. That included 3 very young children.
The Pikesville Sheraton story was macabre, too.
The guy killed the wife and daughter, then lay in wait fo his other daughter for several hours, I think?
It will be a tear fest in church today ~ I know it.
I don’t know how to keep this stuff from my kids.
Don’t know how to explain it ~ there is no explanation.
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