BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith said the man, whom deputies say shot and killed his estranged wife before taking his own life, shot himself in the head while his 11-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son looked on.
Smith said that according to the couple’s children, interviewed by investigators, Loyd Kerr woke the boy and girl up and took them to Rachael Kerr’s GMC Yukon, apparently after tying up his estranged wife. However, when Kerr returned to the trailer and was escorting Rachael out of the house, a neighbor whom the wife had called earlier showed up.
“He runs the neighbor out of the house with a pistol,” the sheriff reported. “Everything’s moving rapidly and fast. Somewhere in the process of this, the wife takes off and runs. He chases her. The children said they heard one shot.
Dad pointed gun at children, asking them if they wanted to go to heaven
Minutes later, their father returned to the GMC and took the kids to the back of the vehicle.
“He brings them out and says something to them, I don’t know the exact words, but it was something similar to basically, ‘Do you want to go to heaven with Dad?’” Smith said, adding that while asking the question, Kerr pointed his weapon at one of the children. “And the first child says no, then he points the gun at the other one and asks, ‘Do you want to go to heaven with Dad?’ and the second child says no, and then he takes his own life right there in front of the children.”
“It’s tragic,” Smith said. “It’s one of the most horrible things—that has to be one of the most heartbreaking, evil things I’ve heard of in quite some time.”
Husband planned attack
The sheriff added that deputies discovered a letter on a bed inside the home on which Kerr had planned the entire attack.
“I can just tell you from the letter, he had preplanned all this,” Smith said. “He had the questions he wanted to ask. He had a list of all the stuff that he brought with him.”
However, the unexpected appearance of the neighbor and Rachael Kerr’s temporary escape upended the husband’s blueprint.
“He was following (the plan),” Smith said. “I think what threw him off was when she ran. When she ran, she changed the whole narrative.”
Victim delayed calling 911
The sheriff said that deputies arrived around 20 seconds after Kerr took his own life.
“I wish she (Rachael Kerr) had called the deputies first before she called everybody else,” Smith said, explaining that when she first heard someone in her house, Rachael Kerr phoned her neighbor and then her boyfriend before calling 911.
“I don’t know if we would have had a better outcome,” Smith said about the 43-year-old’s delay in calling 911. “But it would have given us an opportunity for a better outcome.”
