Did you all see this story? It is absolutely horrifying and shocking. I was cruising through Penn Station on the second leg of my morning commute today, when I passed one of the newsstands and the front page of the Daily News stopped me in my tracks. Looking up at me was a picture of five siblings: the eldest girl, her sisters, a set of twins, and her brothers another set of twins. These children were tragically shot and killed by their father in what appears to have been a murder/suicide. Their mother was also killed. So there you had an entire family wiped out because the parents lost their jobs and the father was apparently so distraught over it that he took everyone’s life, including his own. 

“After a horrendous ordeal, my wife felt it better to end our lives and why leave the children in someone else’s hands,” Ervin Lupoe wrote in the note he faxed to a Los Angeles TV station.

After typing his name, Lupoe printed an anguished postscript: “Oh Lord my God is there no hope for a widow’s son?”

The letter, which appeared on the KABC-TV Web site Wednesday, reveals the writer clearly did not think so.

It also shed more light on why Lupoe shot his wife and kids execution style in the heads before shooting himself.

I can’t describe my feelings to you, dear readers. Those children looked healthy, happy and they were gorgeous. How could their father look at them and shoot to kill? He must have been insane, or at the very least, severely emotionally disturbed. And to say that it was all the wife’s idea? I think we all know who was responsible. When I got to work and pulled up the story on the newspaper’s Web site, the details of the situation made me angry. He planned it, folks. 

He was distraught over the loss of his job, but the story gave no details of a worsening financial situation or gave any indication that the whole lot of them were facing homelessness and abject destitution. Instead, it said something about a dispute with the hospital administrator stemming from a childcare issue. In what appeared to be a suicide letter faxed to a media outlet, he grieved over the possibility of leaving his children with strangers. Wha??? I’m not sure what the hell was on this man’s mind. 

In the first place, there had to have been several very good solutions to the family’s problems, instead of shooting and killing everyone. Downsize from the house. Relinquish the children to a trusted relative for a while if things get really bad. But no, in this man’s mind only he knew, and only he could ever possibly know what was best for his kids.

Apparently not!!!  

What the %$#@ is wrong with certain people? Parenthood is not a priesthood, ‘k? Loads of adults in this world are moral, nurturing, caring and responsible individuals who would guide another person’s child safely through adolescence without molestation, beatings or taking any other tragic twists. Just because you gave birth to or sired your children, it doesn’t always mean that you have what it takes to be the very best parent, or that you always know what is best for junior. But in yet another stunning lack of the ability to think rationally, this man thought that handing his kids to ‘strangers’ — spooky dirty strangers — was a fate worse than death! It’s awful. And now five beautiful children — and their mother — are gone. I just want to puke. 

And it reminds me of the narrow thinking that people of different races, tribes, nationalities, etc., bring to the table when it comes to relating to each other. Can’t intermarry because that guy/woman is from a group of ‘strangers’. Don’t want your child dating someone from another race because they are ‘strangers’. So what do they do? Commit murder in another way, by perpetuating hate and derailing another person’s chances for happiness. Ugh. It makes me mad sometimes. 

People, please get it together!! Stop the bone-headed thinking that leads you down a path of destruction and start to see the possibilities for good in other people and in the world. And for goodness sake, if your circumstances take a turn for the worse, whether over a job loss or illness or something, please don’t take it out on your babies. Find another way out.