Tragic Turn: Mother Takes Her Own Life After Shooting Her Two Young Children, 11 and 14, While Husband Was on Business Trip

A MUM shot dead her two children and then herself when her British husband was away on a business trip.

blasted their son Josh, 14, and 11-year-old daughter Emma in their ­bedrooms before turning the gun on herself.

Her concerned husband, had called after being unable to contact his wife for a day and a half.

Officers called at the family’s gated community home in and “observed circumstances that required them to make entry into the residence”.

Inside they discovered “a violent crime scene”.

The mother and children had all “sustained ­traumatic injuries” in the ­family’s £1.4million pad at affluent Lakewood Ranch in Manatee County.

Police said there had been “some planning involved” in the deaths, adding it was “enough to where [Rubacha] knew what she was doing”.

Mr James — brother of darts presenter and Radio X host Polly James — was said to have been notified when he landed in from his trip to .

Police said they were investigating the motive behind mum Monika’s actions on February 26, the day of the deaths.

A snap from Polly’s page shows Monika smiling with her children, husband and father-in-law Peter on a day by the sea in Clearwater, .

Sheriff Rick Wells, who is investigating the deaths, said: “We don’t understand what’s going on with people and their mental health and what’s going on behind closed doors.

“A case so horrific like this is something maybe no one could have ever predicted. I don’t know if there were signs that maybe family members didn’t pick up. We don’t know.”

The Lake Club homeowners’ association at Lakewood Ranch said its “hearts are with the family and all those affected”.

Eze Chidiebere Paul

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