Missouri man reading hears gunshot, finds wife and 2 kids dead

(CBS/AP) GLENDALE, Mo. - Police said a man was reading in his suburban St. Louis home Monday when he heard a gunshot, then found his wife and two children dead in other rooms of their house in what authorities suspect was a murder-suicide.

Officers were called to the larger house in the western suburb of Glendale after the man found the bodies. He called 911 shortly before 11 a.m., and police found each of the victims had gunshot wounds.

According to CBS St. Louis, Glendale Police Sgt. Bob Catlett said investigators believe mother Catherine Murch shot and killed her 11-year-old son Mitchell and 9-year-old daughter Mary Claire before turning the gun on herself. When police arrived, the father was performing CPR on his son.

Catlett told The Associated Press that the woman's husband is being questioned but isn't being called a suspect.

The husband thought the gunfire was "coming from outside, so he ran to his front door and saw that his wife was laying in the kitchen, his son was laying in a side room and his daughter was in the second story of the home," Catlett told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

A neighbor, who declined to give her full name, told The Associated Press that the parents were devoted to their children and church, and that the mother never showed hints of mental illness.

Authorities said the killings were being investigated as a murder-suicide.