'I can't wake my mom and dad up,' 8-year-old tells neighbor; baby found with couple's bodies

By Jennifer Burns, KTVZ.COM

Madras police confirmed and provided more details Monday about a New Year's murder-suicide that left four children alone in their apartment for two days - the youngest, their infant, in the locked bedroom with the two victims.

New Year's Eve was the last time Andrew Smith saw his neighbors and fellow Warm Springs Tribe friends, Hannah Crowe and Julian Wallulatum.

The last time alive, that is.

Almost three days later, their neighbors' three older children came to his door, hungry and worried about their parents, locked behind their bedroom door.

The horrible truth came soon after: The couple had died in a murder-suicide, their infant at their side. And their three other children had been in the apartment ever since.

The couple shared one child, a 9-month-old girl who was found in the locked bedroom with the two shooting victims, Det. Tanner Stanfill said in Monday's news release.

It's believed that during their argument, Wallulatum fatally shot Crowe in the head with a rifle, then shot himself, probably on New Year's Day, the detective said.

Crowe's three older children - two boys, 8 and 2, and a 4-year-old girl, were unattended at the apartment for the next two days, Stanfill said.

"The older children were reported to have visited a family member at a nearby apartment over the next two days and were able to obtain food and water," Stanfill said.

All four children were taken into protective custody by the state Department of Human Services, then examined at Mountain View Hospital in Madras and "found to be in good condition," Stanfill said.

"It's so hard to deal with," Smith told NewsChannel 21 Sunday at the Willow Creek Apartments on NE Oak Street.

Neighbor Ashley Barker agreed.

"How could they leave the babies?" she asked. "If something was going on, an argument, why didn't they send them to the neighbors?"

On Saturday, Smith recalled, Crowe's three children knocked on his door. The oldest said they had no food and were hungry.

"The oldest one said, 'I can't wake my mom up. I can't wake my mom and dad up, 'cause I think they're still passed out, but I can see blood on my mom's leg, under the door," Smith recounted.

Smith says no one had heard from the couple for two days, but they had seen the kids outside playing, so neighbors and friends never thought anything was wrong.

After the 8-year-old told Smith and his grandparents about the blood, Smith walked to their apartment.

When he opened the door, he smelled something terrible.

That's when he heard the couple's infant girl cry through their locked bedroom door.

"The door was locked. They had  the 9-month-old in there with them," Smith said.

So he kicked down the door: "I went and got the baby out."

"My knees, they wobbled," he said. "It just took it out of me. I almost fainted."

It was a gruesome scene, one that Smith says he'll never be able to forget.

"They had the same clothes on from the day I left them, on New Year's Eve," he said.

Clothes soaked in blood, with their baby beside them, her shirt also covered in blood, as she sat in her own feces.

A scene so horrific, it brought their neighbor to tears.

Barker said, "I was thinking, 'That baby, she's probably hungry and crying.'"

"I never thought anything was wrong," Barker said. "That's why it was such a shock, to know that that happened."

Officers were called to the apartment around 6 p.m. Saturday and found the couples' bodies, Madras police Sgt. Dennis Schneider told NewsChannel 21 late Saturday night.

Madras Police put out a news release sent late Saturday night in which said the two were "domestic partners" and that "it appears to be a homicide-suicide resulting from a domestic dispute." Crowe was listed as the victim and Wallulatum as the suspect.

Both of the victims were Warm Springs tribal members, Schneider said.

Wallulatum would have turned 21 on Friday, while Crowe would have turned 26 on Saturday.

Crowe's family members tell NewsChannel 21 she was a kind person who always took Julian back during his reported troubled past because she was convinced he would change for the better.

Neighbors say it was normal for Crowe to lock herself in her room, one reason why her children may have believed all was well, before the grisly discovery.

Surprisingly, no neighbors apparently heard the shots.

The couple's neighbor says the DHS took the baby into protective custody, and Smith says the other children are with family members on the Warm Springs Reservation.

"Them kids are scarred," Smith said.