Police: 5 dead, including three kids, at South Carolina home

By JEFFREY COLLINS and LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Authorities say a former soldier shot and killed three children as they slept in their South Carolina home while their mother frantically sought help before killing himself. Sumter Police Chief Russell Roark says Charles Slacks Jr. also killed an Army solider who worked with the children’s mother and happened to be at the home. Roark says Slacks and the woman were divorced, but he still had a key to the Sumter home and let himself in around 10 p.m. Tuesday. The police chief says Slacks shot the co-worker in the backyard as the mother tried to stop him, pushed past her to go upstairs and shot the children, ages 5, 6, 11, in their beds.