Father killed his ex-wife, two of her four children and her new boyfriend
before turning the gun on himself in suburban Atlanta home
Police have identified the gunman and victims in an apparent murder-suicide in a quiet neighborhood near Atlanta.
Cedric Prather, 33, shot dead his ex-wife Latoya Andrews, also 33, and two of her four children aged seven and nine - before turning the gun on himself.
A man named Joseph Terry Brown, 33, was also killed at the house in Douglasville, west of Atlanta, Georgia.
Ms Andrews' two other children, an eight-year-old and a 15-year-old, are in a critical but stable condition in hospital.
None of the children have been named by authorities.
A GoFundMe page raising money for Ms Andrews' surviving children pays tribute to the family.
'Saturday Febrary 7th 2015 was a very tragic day. We had to say goodbye to three beautiful people,' writes the group administrator Jenny Brown.
Douglas County Sheriff's Lt. Glenn Daniel said authorities received a 911 call Saturday afternoon suggesting there had been a shooting in Douglasville.
Witnesses described how the suspect parked his car down the street, walked to the front of the house, crept inside and opened fire.
He told CBS 46 the shooter was the ex-husband of one of the victims, but he did not know how long the couple had been divorced.
EMTs arrived at the scene and were reportedly treating victims as they lay in the middle of the residential street.
Teresa Carter, 59, said she heard the gunfire from inside her home but did not see what happened. Police said victims were shot inside and outside the home.
Carter said she often saw the children playing in the driveway and around the neighborhood. They enjoyed petting her dog.
'I heard shots, and I heard the girl scream,' Carter said. 'And then I heard four more shots.'
Brandon Hallman was working on a car a few houses down when the shooting started.
'I heard a couple quick shots, you know, back to back to back. Went out there and, you know, looked and it was already over,' Hallman said.
'We just grabbed some towels and kind of went down there to try and help before the paramedics got here.'
Another neighbor, Angela Ansah, struggled to explain to her own children what happened to their slain friends a few houses down. Ansah said some of the children targeted Saturday often came over to her house to play with her own children.
'These are children I see every day, every blessed day,' Ansah said.
Chief Deputy Stan Copeland, of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office told WSBTV: 'We had multiple victims shot in the street.
'Some of those are siblings, so some (of) these (people) are related. We just don't know who is who right now.'
The shooter's sister was said to have been escorted away by police. Earlier she had said: 'My brother should never have a gun.'
Originally Posted by marshmallow
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