A three-year-old boy was found alone and "wandering around the house" after his mother killed her terminally ill husband, two other young children and thenherself in a horrific murder-suicide.
Emily Long murdered her older children Parker, 8, and Ryan, 6, at around 5:30am on Monday, at their family home in Madbury, New Hampshire. She then shot her husband Ryan Long, 48, several times before taking her own life with a single gun shot, according to the autopsy report.
The couple's three-year-old toddler, James, has been orphaned by the killings. He was thankfully unharmed, but tragically, it appears that the little boy was alone in the property for hours before police found him at home near the bodies.
READ MORE: Tormented final days of mum who shot husband and two kids as tragic last promise revealed
READ MORE: Emily Long murders: Orphaned boy's '12 hours' of horror as mum shoots entire family but spares toddler
Copy arrived at the property at 8.21pm that day, after receiving a call about multiple deaths at the home. The medical examiner on the case told the Daily Mail the killings were likely to have taken place 'in the early morning hours', meaning the toddler could have been left alone for 12 hours or more.
Meanwhile, criminal psychologist John Eastham, from Private Investigations UK, told The Mirror that the toddler would most likely have been in 'significant distress'.
"This is anunimaginably traumatic eventfor such a young child," said John. "At three years old, a boy has only a limited ability to process what has happened but children are acutely sensitive to their surroundings. Even if he cannot fully understand death, the sudden absence of his family and the distress in his environment will leave an imprint."
Just two days before the shootings, Emily posted a worrying TikTok video where she spoke about her struggles coping with her husband's ill-health. Ryan had been diagnosed with terminal glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
In her final video, the distressed influencer told her nearly 8,000 followers that her children were "definitely struggling" with her husband's diagnosis, but she remained determined to improving her own mental health.
The mum made a tragic final promise to her family as she declared: "Today I decided I need to make a conscious effort to shift my mindset. I'm getting out of this depression whether I want to or not."
"I am determined to create normalcy. I'm trying to get myself out of the rut, our kids are definitely struggling, and now I'm starting to notice some changes in our 3-year-old.
In separate videos, she spoke about the grief of having to tell her children that Ryan's diagnosis was terminal. She explained that her two eldest children understood the condition, and the outcome, more thoroughly than their youngest child.
On May 11, Emily uploaded a video captioned: "Want to watch someone actually fall apart before your very eyes? I swear, this cancer will be the thing that breaks me."
Neighbours expressed their shock, describing the Longs as "a perfect family". “It was a perfect family as far as we knew,” neighbour Bevy Ketel told WBZ-TV. “It’s just shocking. We didn’t see it coming.”
Someone claiming to be a friend of Emily's also expressed their shock as they paid tribute to the couple, calling them "incredible people and parents".
Commenting on a TikTok video reporting the tragic incident, user @mbd327 penned: "I've known Emily for many years and no one that knows her or Ryan could have EVER suspected this would have happened to this beautiful family.
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