Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Man kills himself; daughters also dead
By HECTOR CASTRO SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
EDMONDS -- He e-mailed a suicide note to friends letting them know he planned to kill his two young daughters and himself, then the Edmonds man apparently followed through.
Yesterday, alerted by friends alarmed by his note, Edmonds police officers arrived at a home in a quiet neighborhood at 12:42 p.m. and discovered the bodies of Stephen James Byrne, 50, and his two daughters.
Mike Urban / P-I Neighbors console one another near the scene of an apparent murder-suicide in Edmonds on Monday. Police found the bodies of a father and his two daughters. Byrne was in the back yard of his home in the 8100 block of 188th Street Southwest, and the two girls were inside the home, Sgt. Debbie Smith said.
The father was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, she said. But investigators did not know how the two girls had died.
An autopsy by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office likely will establish that.
Some neighbors were visibly distraught by the news hours later, watching as police waited for crime-scene investigators from the Washington State Patrol to process the home for evidence.
Those closest to Byrne were left stunned and grief-stricken by this apparent murder-suicide.
"It's been enormously shocking," said Rita Hibbard, a close friend of Byrne's. "Steve was a wonderful person who loved his daughters."
Hibbard, an assistant managing editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was one of the friends to receive Byrne's e-mailed suicide note. But nothing in that note explained his actions, she said.
She last saw Byrne on Sunday.
"I saw nothing that would lead me to believe this would happen," she said. "Everything seemed normal."
The note, Smith said, was sent to more than one friend.
It included comments that Byrne would take his own life and kill his daughters "and that he can't be deterred," the police sergeant said.
The e-mail told those who received it that it "would be too late" by the time they read the note to stop him, Smith said.
She also told reporters that police received a telephone call from a male caller who "asked to have police and medics sent to this address and then hung up."
Byrne and the girls' mother divorced in 2000. The girls lived primarily with their mother at her Shoreline home, neighbors said. Calls to the mother yesterday were not returned.
The woman's attorney, Paula Crane, said last night that when she last talked to the mother about two months ago, she and Byrne had "slight frictions" about the terms of the parenting plan.
"They must have resolved them because I didn't hear any more about it," she said.
Crane said she was not aware of any domestic violence in the couple's history.
Crane's last contact with Byrne was about 18 months ago when the girls' mother got a new job in North Seattle and wanted to relocate from Bainbridge Island; Byrne didn't want his ex-wife to move, so she went to court to obtain permission to relocate, Crane said.
Byrne had problems paying child support because he was unemployed for a period of time, she said.
A filing from the state Department of Social and Health Services indicated that in April, Byrne owed $8,673 in past-due child support and a lien was placed on his property.
The Shoreline School District yesterday said it was notified of the deaths of the two sisters, who were in the third and sixth grades at Sunset Elementary, and planned to have counselors available today for their classmates.
Byrne was a software developer who did consulting work for energy companies. He ran his company, Item Systems, out of his home.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. P-I reporter Hector Castro can be reached at 206-903-5396 or hectorcastro@seattlepi.com
The leftist media is at it again, glamorizing criminals.
Can someone help me out by posting the pic that ran with the obit? I don't have a place to host pics.
This is one of the most awful things I have ever seen in a newspaper.
What's going on:
Newspapers now don't write obituaries any more.
(except for those they choose to honor)
The family writes it and pays per line.
The paper was following its policy.
It didn't 'honor' the deceased.
My opinion: It could have refused the family's submitted obituary.
I think I am going to go break something now......
I wish these cowards would just kill themselves and leave the innocent kids alone.
Another sad tragedy.
I have never heard of that software before. I wonder if this was his company:
http://www.item.com/index.htm
Is the glowing report about Byrne in the form of a letter to the editor? An obituary? People can say anythng they want to in those. Though why anyone would want to heap praise upon a nutcase who killed two beautiful little girls is beyond understanding. It's the liberal mindset, however.
I read about a couple in some city who was walking down the street when a robber jumped out of the bushes and shot the husband dead. The obviously liberal wife said she "felt sorry for the killer and didn't bear him any ill will."
Disgusting.
And then he went completely nuts.
Sad. Very sad that he is seen as a good man, and his life was a struggle. I bet theirs were too, being killed and all.
This obit is in incredibly poor taste. The paper does have the power to refuse to print paid items, including obits. I hope they receive a thousand angry emails about this.
"Entries are free and are posted after being reviewed for appropriate content. "
I would imagine that saying something like "Child killers like this should not be remembered fondly in death as this obit suggests but instantly forgotten, and all documents bearing their names and all of their life's works should be excised from this Earth. The Times and it's Leftist clone the P.I. both need to be burned to the ground for being the shameless and obvious mouthpieces of the Democrats while pretending to bring us objective news." would be regarded as "inappropriate content"
More than anything in the world, I love the reporters of the Seattle Times. Where's my shotgun?
I appreciate your point about the tone of the obit under the circumstances..... but those obits are placed and paid for by the family, not written or edited by the paper.
I am speechless and appalled.
Beyond appalled actually.
Apparently not, dumbass.
Does your link actually go to the Seattle Times as you say? No, it doesn't, does it? This is a contracted Classified Ad service.