Mark Meeks, Wife Jennifer Dallas-Meeks & Two Children Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide

Well, here we go again. Another murder-suicide. According to the Columbus Dispatch, police suspect a murder-suicide in the deaths of a couple and their two small children. The cops have not released the names, but Mike Meeks said that they are his brother, Mark Meeks, 51; his brother’s wife, Jennifer Dallas-Meeks, 40; and their children, Abby, 8, and Jimmy, 5. The bodies were found in a ranch home owned by the couple at 918 Beechwood Rd.

Whitehall police refused to say last night how the four died or whether a weapon was found. “It has the markings of a murder-suicide,” Sgt. Daniel Kelso said without elaborating. “This is not a high-crime area.”

Relatives of the couple called police a little before 2 p.m. requesting that officers check on the family’s well-being, Kelso said. Police found the four bodies upon arrival. Neighbor Stephanie Grunkemeyer, 37, said she saw Mark Meeks shoveling his driveway about 11 a.m. yesterday.

“They were really good people. I’m shocked,” she said. “The kids were just the cutest. They’d come play in our yard — they always wanted to play — and we’d color the same coloring book a million times.”

Mark Meeks worked as a service manager for a car dealership and Dallas-Meeks was a stay-at-home mom who sold candles from home, said Mike Meeks, 49, of Columbus. “He was just a good family guy,” Meeks said of his brother. “Mark was just the kind of guy who never met a stranger, and he could sell ice to the Eskimos.” Source: Columbus Dispatch

A neighbor said that the father had recently lost his job and was rehired three weeks ago. Investigators have said that this may have been a factor in the deaths. This news comes one day after police in Wilmington, Ca., found the bodies of Ervin and Ana Lupoe and their five children. Lupoe was in debt and had recently been fired from his job. This is a really sad turn of events and I suspect that we will hear more murder-suicides in the news as the economy continues to deteriorate. This is a selfish way to go, but sometimes one comes to a breaking point of irrationality where there seems to be no hope. There is hope, no matter how dark and treacherous the path forward seems to be.

I am appalled that this case has flown under the radar. This was not broadcast in the mainstream media as the murder-suicide of the Lupoe family in California. It would be equally shameful if this is a deliberate move on their part to keep this out of the daily news. If that is the case, I can only conclude that this action was racially motivated. The outcry should be the same. Mr. Meeks, for what is worth, committed a selfish and heinous act. Yes, no matter how dark it may seem, neither Mr. Meeks nor Mr. Lupoe had the right to take the lives of their wives and children.

Filed under: Ana Lupoe, Columbus OH, Economic Downturn, Ervin Lupoe, Jennifer Dallas-Meeks, Mark Meeks, Murder-Suicide

Ervin Lupoe Murders Wife, Ana Lupoe, Five Young Children, Says in Note to TV Station, They Were Fired from Kaiser Permanente Facility

Photo: Ervin Antonio Lupoe and Family (found on Fox News)

I am painfully aware of the economic crisis we are going through in this country, but I am also disappointed that someone could be so selfish and cruel as to kill his entire family. Ervin Antonio Lupoe did just that. He fatally shot his wife, five young children and himself today. He had earlier faxed a note to a television station in which he claimed that he and his wife had just been fired from their hospital jobs and had planned the killings as a final escape for the whole family. Huh? “Why leave the children to a stranger?” Ervin Lupoe wrote, according to KABC-TV.

The station called police after receiving the fax, and a police dispatch center also received a call from a man who stated, “‘I just returned home and my whole family’s been shot.” The fax asserted that Ana Lupoe planning the killings of the whole family, but police Lt. John Romero said Lupoe was the suspect. A revolver was reportedly found next to his body.

According to media reports, Ana Lupoe’s body was found in a downstairs bedroom with the bodies of the couple’s twin 2-year-old boys. The bodies of an 8-year-old girl, twin 5-year-old girls were found alongside Lupoe’s in an upstairs bedroom.

Here is the really crazy statistic. This tragedy was the fifth mass death of a Southern California family by murder or suicide in a year. Come on people. Surely you can face tough economic times with some dignity, resolve and determination instead of resorting to violence. That is simply not the solution to the problem. There are alternatives to committing such a horrific crime.

Lupoe removed three of the children from school about a week and a half ago, saying the family was moving to Kansas, the school principal told KCAL-TV. Crescent Heights Elementary School Principal Cherise Pounders-Caver said nothing seemed to be troubling Lupoe at that time; she did not ask why the family was moving.

Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West Los Angeles released a statement confirming both Lupoe and his wife worked there; both were medical technicians. “We are deeply saddened to hear of the deaths of the Lupoe family,” it said in a statement. Source: The Huffington Post

Of course, Ervin Lupoe was a coward. He claimed his wife suggested that they kill themselves and their children, too. This man was supposed to protect his family, not destroy them. This is such a senseless and horrific crime. These children did not deserve the fate that befell them.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.

Filed under: Ana Lupoe, Ervin Lupoe, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West LA, Murder-Suicide