The Tucson Police Department in Arizona says a 40-year-old man, Phillip Foye, fatally shot his 10-year-old son before turning the gun on himself in an apparent murder-suicide case.
According to PEOPLE, the police were called to a residence on December 12 after the caller told 911 dispatchers he wanted to do a welfare check on a man and a boy as he was trying to reach out to the man but he wasn’t responding to his calls or text messages. When the officers eventually arrived at the home and knocked, no one answered.
“We treated it as barricade situation,” Tucson Police Department Sgt. Richard Gradillas told the news outlet. “We were able to get our SWAT team in.”
After the officers managed to enter the home, they said they found Foye’s body with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The body of Foye’s son, Sebastian, was also found in another room in the home. He had also been apparently fatally shot.
“We are currently investigating it as a murder-suicide,” Gradillas said, adding that the shooting likely occurred just before the man who wanted to do the welfare check called 911. “It looked like it happened recently around the time we got the phone call.”
Another occupant of the house, an adult female, wasn’t around when the shooting happened, PEOPLE reported.
“It is pretty traumatic especially around Christmas time,” Gradillas said. “You have someone who hasn’t even started his life. It is tragic. The child was involved in youth sports and heavily involved in the community. It is just bad.”
