Two young girls were tragically killed by their mother, who then took her own life late last month, according to Maine state police.
On July 27, the bodies of Hope Marie West, 6, Harmony Mae West, 11, and Jennifer Barney, 37, were found in their apartment on Highland Avenue in Mechanic Falls, a small former mill town. The youngest girl would have turned 7 on the day of the heartbreaking discovery.
Law enforcement initially responded to a report of a stolen U-Haul truck that hadn’t been returned, the Mechanic Falls Police Department said in a press release. The vehicle was recovered after 3:30 p.m. that Saturday afternoon.
“The officer and a deputy with the Androscoggin Sheriff’s Office tried to contact the resident at that address as she had rented the truck,” Mechanic Falls Police Chief Jeffrey Goss said. “During their investigation, they discovered that the resident, an adult female, was deceased inside her residence. Officers entered the home and found two children, also deceased, inside.”
The case was then handed over to the Maine State Police, Goss said, following standard protocol for such incidents.
An animal control officer took custody of the family’s pets, which included a small white dog and a Doberman pinscher, police added. Neighbors reported these details to the Sun Journal.
Investigators quickly determined the scene was a double murder-suicide. Neither law enforcement nor the surviving family have suggested a motive for the violence.
An autopsy revealed that one girl died from multiple stab wounds, while the other succumbed to various other injuries. Authorities have not disclosed the cause of death for the mother, pending further testing by the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
“We’re all in shock. Distraught. Devastated,” grandmother Davina Wilcox told CBS affiliate WGME in Portland, Maine. “Never expected in a million years I’d be burying my grandchildren.”
Wilcox had previously buried her 31-year-old son, the father of the two girls and the husband of their killer, in December 2019.
“He enjoyed playing the guitar and spending time with family and friends, but his daughters, Hope and Harmony, were his world,” reads James Lee West’s obituary.
Wilcox described her granddaughters fondly.
“They were loved by everyone who knew them,” Wilcox told the TV station. “Harmony loved unicorns. Her favorite color was pink. She loved makeup and dressing up. She had lots of friends at school.”
“Hopey,” Wilcox continued, fighting back tears, “was just precious. She loved anything related to cats. Her favorite color was purple. And she adored her sister.”
A GoFundMe, now disabled by the girls’ uncle who organized it, raised just over $10,000 for the family’s funeral expenses.
“Harmony and Hope were best friends, and we’re grateful they had each other through the challenges they faced in their young lives,” the fundraiser reads. “Our hearts are shattered by the tragedy of their passing.”
The two girls were born in nearby Lewiston and attended Elm Street School, a pre-K through sixth-grade public school.
Neighbors told WGME and the Sun Journal that Harmony and Hope usually played on their trampoline daily.
“It was always so nice to see those little blonde heads jumping up and down on that trampoline, and I’ll definitely miss that,” a neighbor identified only as Devon told the TV station.
“Yeah, my really nice friend,” Devon’s daughter Zoe said. “We played games together and on the playground.”
In recent weeks, however, the girls had stopped attending summer school classes and had not been seen playing outside.
While the motive for this tragic event remains unclear, the girls’ grandmother has some thoughts about those final weeks and moments.
“Had she said anything, we would have helped,” Wilcox told WGME. “Everyone would have helped.”
