News 12 First at Five, September 4, 2008

AUGUSTA, Ga -- An eight-year-old girl and her two teenage siblings, now without both parents after what investigators are calling a murder-suicide in Burke County.

It happened just before midnight off of Ben Hatcher Road near
Waynesboro. Investigators say Gary Scott drove his wife Calandra Scott to a church just blocks from their home and shot her, then went home and shot himself.

And the couple's three children were there.

"I loved my momma too much for this to happen." Clutching a picture of her mother, Calandra, 8-year-old Taelyr Scott fights back her tears. "I love my parents so much. I love my whole family too much for this to happen."

This, loosing both her mom and dad to domestic violence.

"I heard the children hollering daddy, daddy please don't kill my mom." says Gary's father Cleo Scott. He lives next door and says the argument began over emails Gary found between Calandra and another man.

"He was out of control. That was another person." Cleo, who's wheelchair bound, could only listen as he says his son forced Calandra into his truck at gunpoint. "I couldn't get out there. I prayed to god, I tried to get out there but I couldn't walk."

Investigators say Gary Scott then brought his wife here up the road to Fairfield Missionary Baptist Church and shot Calandra one time in the head. Their 3 children were not far behind, and drove up and found their mother lying here on the ground and they desperately tried to save her.

Family members say little Taelyr even tried CPR on her mother. "I pray and I prayed but it just didn't come true."

Moments later, Gary was back home where investigators say he shot himself in the head; leaving his children and family to grieve. "I just want people to know you need to love one another and if you can't get along with each other then just separate.Don't put this hardship on parents and children." says Calandra's mother Shirley Printis. She says Gary and Calandra had been married 11 years and family members say there were no known problems.

Printis will now raise the children and she says she's going to let the children decide if they want their parents to be buried together.