DA: Murder-Suicide Outside YMCA In Chester County
By Todd Quinones
WEST BRANDYWINE Twp., Pa., (CBS) -- Authorities are investigating a deadly shooting in West Brandywine Township, Chester County.
The victim CBS 3 Eyewitness News is told worked as a fitness instructor and was the mom of two children.
She was shot and killed Monday night outside the YMCA where she worked.
About 40 kids and parents huddled inside the YMCA after the shots were fired.
Terrified and panicked, lifeguards stood in front of the windows to protect the crowd.
"We kept all families back in a corner, away from all the windows towards the door," Lifeguard Carley Stutzman said.
The shooting happened outside in the parking lot.
The Brandywine YMCA was placed on lockdown.
Investigators say a man who had a relationship with the mom shot and killed her at around 6 p.m. Monday. When police arrived to the YMCA off Hurley Road, the man then shot and killed himself.
A co-worker says the woman was the mother of a 17 and 10-year-old.
"One of the sweetest and most caring people you will ever meet in your whole life. She was very motherly to everybody," Sutzman said.
Nervous parents waited for about an hour until the lockdown was lifted and the area was declared safe.
No one else was hurt.
"I called my daughter. She didn't want to talk about it because she's in the childcare. So she wanted to stay calm for the kids and so I told her to text me, and that's when she told me that someone had shot themselves after shooting someone else," Beatrice Alamo Caban said.
Eyewitness News talked to the Chester County District Attorney about the details of the shooting.
"It's very clear that the individual who did this, the male, had planned what he was going to do. The exact details of what he did we are not releasing yet, but this was not anything that this woman ever would have seen coming," Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said.
The identities of the mother and the shooter have not been released yet.
Police describe this as a clear murder-suicide involving a domestic situation.
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