Oregon Public Broadcasting

Police continue to investigate Monday the murder-suicide of a Madras couple on New Year's Day. The deaths leave four children without a home. Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

Hannah Crowe and Julian Wallulatum were found dead, when Crowe's three school-aged children told neighbors they were hungry and worried.

Neighbors kicked down the couples' locked door and inside found the bodies, lying next to Wallulatum's nine-month old daughter.

Police suspect that Wallulatum shot Crowe, before turning the gun on himself.

The infant is in the custody of the state. The three older children are with family members.

Joan Schweizer Hoff is the associate director of the Dougy Center for Grieving Children, in Portland.

She says children of such tragedies face a confusing landscape.

Joan Schweizer Hoff: "It's not uncommon for children to talk about 'the mom' who was murdered, is in heaven, and that the person who committed the murder, and then died by suicide, is in hell or is being punished somehow."

Schweizer Hoff adds that younger children may not grasp the permanency of their parents' deaths until later on in life, when the grief may reemerge.