FOLKSTON, Ga. (AP) Evidence shows a 39-year-old woman fatally shot her teenage son and her mother before killing herself at their home in southeast Georgia, authorities said Wednesday.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a news release that an autopsy and other evidence indicate Kimberly Gayle Butts was responsible for a double homicide-suicide in rural Charlton County. Also slain were the woman's 15-year-old son, Caleb Logan Butts, and her 64-year-old mother, Jan Elizabeth Kirkland.
The deaths were discovered Tuesday by Kimberly Butts' father, Michael Wilson, who called 911. Wilson told an operator on the 911 recording that he came to his daughter's home to borrow an onion when he found the kitchen's gas stove burning and saw the bodies, WTLV-TV reported .
``I just went around and touched everybody,'' Wilson says on the recording in a somber and sometimes halting voice. ``And I've got three dead people here.''
The family lived in a small community called St. George near the Georgia-Florida state line.
Wilson told the 911 operator Kimberly Butts was his daughter and Kirkland was his ex-wife. He identified his daughter and grandson as two of the dead, but said he didn't recognize the third body. Asked if they had been shot, Wilson said he couldn't tell.
The Charlton County Sheriff's Office said in its incident report that both women were shot in the head, while the boy had multiple gunshot wounds to his chest. One woman was found in the kitchen. The other was in a bedroom next to the boy, with a handgun lying on her shoulder.
The GBI said ballistic tests and other laboratory exams are still pending in the case.
On the 911 call, Wilson asks for police to be sent to the home and says he'll be waiting outside.
``The gas stove's burning. I don't know why,'' he said. ``But I'm leaving everything the way it is.''
