Picture of Matthew Edwards Who Killed Family in Delaware
Julie Edwards, her hubby, Matthew, and their three children were set to leave for Baltimore Monday night for a national conference that Julie helped to plan and coordinate.
Matthew, who was living and working in North Carolina, had returned to their Prices Corner home Sunday to accompany the family unit to the briefing, despite the fact that he and his wife were "estranged," said Julie'southward friend, Brianna Horney.
Instead, Matthew Edwards shot and killed commencement his family and and then himself in what state investigators take ruled a murder suicide. State constabulary said Matthew Edwards sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to autopsies completed Tuesday.
Matthew did not appear to have a criminal history in Delaware, according to a review of courtroom records Tuesday.
The News Journal has independently identified the victims as Matthew, 42; his wife, Julie, 41; Jacob, 6; Brinley, 4; and Paxton, 3. State Constabulary confirmed the parents' names.
"Her world was her kids," Horney said Tuesday, recalling the woman she showtime met at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Infirmary for Children when their children shared a hospital room.
Both Edwards' son and Horney's daughter have rare genetic disorders that united the women over the last seven years. The oldest Edwards kid, Jacob, had Williams syndrome, a developmental disorder that affects many parts of the body, including advent and intellectual power, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Julie became heavily involved with the Williams Syndrome Association in support of her oldest son, and served as a regional director for the association, Horney said. The family also participated in weekend walks and conferences regularly.
Now, the community is reeling in the wake of the family members' deaths. Police were called to the home at 2709 Ferris Route at viii p.yard. Mon subsequently the family was constitute expressionless within. A 911 call reported an "unknown medical emergency" to numerous first responders who were dispatched to the scene.
No motive for the killings was released by state investigators.
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From the onset of the investigation, police told neighbors they had no reason to fearfulness for their safety.
Instead, the surrounding community was left reeling from the tragedy that struck on the otherwise tranquillity block.
Those neighbors lined the sidewalks around the home Mon night looking for answers. Some speculated, while others hung their heads in sadness as the details filtered out to them.
Already, a GoFundMe – "Help fund Edwards family unit funeral" –created to support the funerals of the Edwards' children has raised more than than $8,000 with a goal of $xx,000.
A few neighbors, such as Wilfredo Rivera, said they'd learned recently of marital problems inside the Edwards domicile. Rivera said he heard almost them every bit recently as Sunday.
"He was telling me well-nigh his problems while his kids were running up and downwardly the street," Rivera said Tuesday.
Rivera said he was more acquaintance than friend of Matthew Edwards, though the killing of three children just across the street saddened him.
Other friends who didn't live in the neighborhood learned of the news when it hitting TV and Internet screens.
When Nina Boyer saw footage of the house where land police were investigating Monday night, her heart sank. She used to live in the neighborhood and yet lives nearby.
A closer shot of the domicile made the tragedy fifty-fifty more real.
"Oh my God," she remembered thinking. "I know that house. I know those people."
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A call to Stephanie Peterson, a boyfriend teacher at a church building day care in Marshallton, confirmed Boyer'south fears: It was the Edwards' house.
A mail service on Facebook shortly after from Julie Edwards' blood brother affirmed what they already knew.
Both Peterson and Boyer got to know the Edwards at the twenty-four hours care where the ii youngest children attended preschool.
Brinley, the centre child and only girl, began going to the day intendance when she was about ane 1/2 years old back in 2015, Boyer said, adding that she worked with Brinley in the toddler room.
Every bit the years passed, Paxton, the youngest boy who was only a year younger than Brinley, also came to the day care.
"Paxton just followed his big sister effectually," Boyer said. "And (Brinley) was my narrator. She was wise beyond her years, 3 going on 23."
Peterson agreed, calculation Brinley often came off equally years older in the way she talked and spoke with people.
"She was always asking questions and she always wanted to learn," Peterson said.
The relationship between the teachers and the Edwards family unit furthered every bit the children spent more fourth dimension at the school. Peterson also began babysitting for the family unit at their domicile, where she came to know their oldest son, Jacob.
Merely the boy was total of hugs and smiles, Peterson said. Occasionally, he would come to the twenty-four hours care after schoolhouse, Boyer said.
"He was merely a happy, happy male child," Boyer said. "He loved music. He loved to dance."
Molly Merrill met Julie Edwards when they were dropping their kids off at the same day intendance. They never became close friends, but Merrill said she leaned on the experience Julie Edwards accumulated raising Jacob.
Merrill's daughter, Michaela, has Sanfilippo Syndrome, a rare metabolic disorder that manifests in young children first through symptoms similar speech problems and developmental delays.
"When we got diagnosed, Julie was just there for me, and at that place for anybody in the Williams Syndrome community," Merrill said. "She always had the all-time advice. There'due south non a manual on how to be a special needs mom. Nobody tells you how to do that, but she was the person who did that for me."
Merrill described Julie Edwards equally a office model, someone who'd already passed through the learning stage of raising a child with special needs, eager and willing to share her noesis.
"She simply seemed so patient. (Jacob) was a very, very sweet boy, merely all kids with special needs are challenging," Merrill said. "She just always seemed to do the correct matter and I never saw her flinch."
Over the past months, Merrill said Julie Edwards seemed to glow with positivity. She'd lost a lot of weight, Merrill said, and changed her pilus. Her friend Brianna Horney said she had lost 90 pounds since the get-go of the year and was trying to assistance other friends do the same.
Her Facebook posts were also uplifting and self-assured, Merrill said.
"She was really taking such good intendance of herself. Information technology seemed like she was doing then well," Merrill said.
In many means, it did not surprise the women who knew her, proverb she was impossible to forget — a woman who both Boyer and Peterson said made friends everywhere she went.
"She would drop the kids off and an hour after I would yet notice her in the building talking to somebody," Boyer said. "She was ever talking to somebody. She never met a stranger. And her kids were the same way."
Peterson grew to know Julie Edwards more than closely, buying her first pair of LuLaRoe leggings from the mother of three. Julie Edwards sold Perfectly Posh, Tastefully Uncomplicated and some other product lines online to help support the family, Peterson said.
The kids stopped coming to the day care in December, Boyer said, and though she didn't know why specifically, she kept in touch with the family unit on social media and saw that the children stayed at home with their mother.
"I just want people to know how full of life they were," she said. "They were friends with everybody. When you talked to Julie, you felt like she knew you lot for years."
Neither Peterson nor Boyer knew much about Edwards' husband, whom both women met through the day care.
Some of Matthew Edwards' neighbors said they knew him, though none said they had a close relationship with him. Those neighbors said he'd lost a local job and had taken up work out of state more than recently.
"Our kids played together. Nosotros've been over to barbecues," said Brian Covenko, who lives across the street and said he last talked to Matthew Edwards around Memorial Day. "Every time he was here, he was playing with his kids. I don't know what happened within of doors, just I know he was outside with his kids a lot."
Rivera said he was talking with his neighbor Dominicus afternoon, but on Tuesday morning couldn't remember his name. Their relationship was cordial, but not deep.
"They was outside playing. They would spend fourth dimension outside. But I approximate in the past calendar month he started working in another state," Rivera said. "He loved his kids."
Rivera said he knew Matthew Edwards enjoyed hunting and endemic firearms. He said on Dominicus Matthew Edwards told him he and his wife weren't getting along anymore.
"I just patted him on his shoulder and told him to go along his caput up and don't permit something like that discourage him and to take care of his kids," Rivera said.
When Kim Ternenyi last saw Julie, the mother gave her lettuce and dark-green beans from her garden.
"We were talking well-nigh what puddle I go to, and where she and her kids signed upwardly to," she said. "I just been crying all day."
Ternenyi, who lives right behind the Edwards, said she didn't know how Julie had the free energy to keep upwardly with iii children, particularly while Matt was working downwards south. She said Julie was constantly going to Baltimore or Kennett Square with the kids.
"She just told me she couldn't stay in one place," Ternenyi said.
Just nothing could ready neighbors for the news that the family living across the street or effectually the corner was expressionless.
"I'm just shocked. There was no fashion to prepare for this," Covenko said.
He and his married woman remembered going trick-or-treating with the family. The Edwards family unit members all dressed upwardly as characters from Star Wars. I of the three children was R2-D2.
"We were close," Covenko said. "I still don't believe it."
Peterson said she knew that Matthew Edwards had struggled in the past with jobs, but he was largely quiet and she had non seen the family in a few months since they stopped coming to the day intendance.
"It'southward a consummate shame," Peterson said. "They were so immature. It just blows my listen that it even happened to them."
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Contact Brittany Horn at (302) 324-2771 or bhorn@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @brittanyhorn.
Source: https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/crime/2018/07/10/5-members-family-shot-death-prices-corner-identified-delaware/771057002/
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