Unspeakable loss: Neighbours lighting candles in front of the slain family’s house in West Valley City, Utah. — AP
A Utah mother who police believe was shot and killed by her husband along with three of their children was a refugee who fled violence in Myanmar and dreamed of thriving with her family in the United States, relatives said.Police believe the husband killed his family before shooting himself, and a teenage son was badly wounded.
The bodies of Bu Meh, 38, along with her daughters Kristina Ree, eight, and Nyay Meh, two, and son Boe Reh, 11, were found in their home in West Valley City, a Salt Lake City suburb, on Tuesday.
A handgun was found under the father Dae Reh, 42, leading police to believe this was a murder-suicide, but no evidence of a motive has been released.
One child, 17-year-old Sha Reh, survived being shot in the head and is hospitalised with a severe brain injury, police said.
Bu Meh, a member of Myanmar’s Karenni ethnic minority, fled what her relatives described as ethnic cleansing in the South-East Asian nation about 10 years ago.
She and her small family lived for a time in a refugee camp in Thailand, then migrated to the US “with little more than the clothing on their backs”, the family said in a statement.
She taught herself English, learned new skills and worked hard to support her growing family, achieving a way of life “far beyond the nightmare of her former country or the refugee camp”, the family said.
“For reasons that we cannot comprehend, her husband robbed her and their children of that security and their very lives,” her family said.
Police believe the shooting happened over the weekend.
Police initially went to the home on Monday night after a relative asked them to check on the family but did not find any sign of an emergency that would allow them to enter the home.
The relative went to the home on Tuesday, saw Sha Reh wounded in the garage and called police, who found the bodies inside the home.
In their statement, relatives called Sha Reh their hero and said he faces a “long and complex road to recovery”.
An online fundraiser is collecting donations to pay for his care and to help him go to college.
Neighbours had not reported any gunshots in the area over the weekend, police spokesman Roxeanne Vainuku said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The family had no previous reports of domestic violence or other disturbances.
The tragic Utah case is the 38th mass killing in the US this year. — AP
