Oklahoma Mom Shot Her 3 Kids Before Killing Herself in Barricaded Home: Cops

Police say a mother of three children was behind a triple murder-suicide in an Oklahoma home Thursday.

Brandy McCaslin, 39, was identified by law enforcement as the mother who shot her three children — ages 11, 6 and ten-months — before turning the gun on herself during an hours-long standoff with police, authorities said in a statement Friday.

A confrontation began in the town of Verdigris, a suburb east of Tulsa, when a police officer driving along the street saw fireworks coming from inside the garage of a house, according to Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI).

The officer stopped and found a woman and two children locked inside the garage. 

The woman said she had taken another child to the home for a supervised visit and was met by an armed woman who took the child and locked the woman and the two other children with her in the garage, OSBI said. 

After several law enforcement agencies responded, McCaslin barricaded herself inside.

Officers attempted to make contact with the woman for about three hours, authorities said.

"Negotiations quickly began, as they worked to make contact with 39-year-old Brandy McCaslin. A stand-off ensued for the next three hours. After no response, officers made entry into the home where they found McCaslin, along with her three children, dead inside," OSBI said.

"It was determined that McCaslin shot all three kids and then turned the weapon on herself," the bureau added.

Lucretia Pitre, a family friend, told the news outlet Tulsa World that McCaslin had faced a great deal of loss in recent years, including the deaths of her sister, her mother, her uncle and her grandparents.

The deaths had involved cancer, suicide and a drug overdose, she said, according to the report.

"This is heartbreaking," Pitre said. "This family's seen a lot, you know. Mental health has I feel like just really, really, really affected this family when it comes to that and substance abuse."

"I just can't believe she took the kids. I don't know," she continued. "I just don't understand it."

A GoFundMe page setup in January for McCaslin by a friend stated that she was "no longer financially able to keep the house" she lived in with her children and grandmother.

It also said she "just left a mentally/verbally abusive relationship" and was "limited on her allowance" due to being on supplemental security income.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.