Florida shooting: Mother kills her 4 children, police say

Florida shooting: Mother kills her 4 children, police say

PORT ST. JOHN, Fla. â€" The unmistakable sound of gunfire stirred the neighbors early Tuesday. Moments later, there was a knock at the front door.

They opened it to find three children from next door â€" at least one of them shot and wounded, authorities said. The neighbors called 911, grabbed a towel and tried to attend to the kids.

Then, the couple told deputies later, a calm voice in the darkness summoned the three children back to their home on Bright Avenue in Port St. John. It was their mother, 33-year-old Tonya Thomas.

The neighbors tried to stop the kids from returning home, according to Brevard County Sheriff's Lt. Tod Goodyear. But the kids walked back obediently. And once inside, Thomas apparently shot and killed them.

Deputies were just arriving at 4:54 a.m. Tuesday when they heard the shots that ended the lives of Joel, Jazlin and Jaxs Johnson. They were 12, 13 and 15. Deputies believe Thomas shot Jaxs while he slept.

Their oldest sibling, 17-year-old Pebbles Johnson, was stretched out in the frontyard motionless when deputies arrived. They drove onto the lawn and loaded her into the back of a deputy's cruiser, but by the time they could get her to paramedics waiting nearby, she was dead.

When deputies approached the home again just after 5 a.m., a person with a gun they later realized was Johnson came out of the home, but quickly turned and went back inside.

At 5:26 a.m., a final shot rang out.

After killing all four of her children, Thomas shot herself to death, according to Goodyear.

"It appears all these children were dead at or before the time deputies arrived," he said during a news conference. "Everything points to her."

Thomas and the children's father had recently separated and he was living elsewhere. Detectives late Tuesday were still piecing together the scene but are no closer to understanding why Thomas opened fire.

"I'm a father. I've got kids. I cannot comprehend a parent doing this to their children ... to call them back into the slaughter," Goodyear said.

Goodyear said that around 3 a.m. Tuesday, Thomas sent a text message to a family friend saying she wanted to be cremated along with her children. But the friend didn't see the note until well after the shootings, detectives said.

arehernandez@tribune.com