parents killed, kids injured in home
12-year-old boy held in deaths of parents, injuries to siblings at Burlington home
By Kieran Nicholson and Jordan Steffen
The Denver Post
Posted: 03/03/2011 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 03/03/2011 06:25:49 AM MST
* Mar 2:
* 12-year-old now being held as suspect in parents' shooting deaths
* Mar 1:
* Homicide reported in Burlington
BURLINGTON — A 12-year-old boy is being held on suspicion of killing his parents before gravely wounding his younger siblings in a violent rampage that shocked residents of this plains town near the Kansas border.
Charles Long, 50, and Marilyn Long, 51, were found dead in their Burlington home Tuesday evening after the boy called 911 to report that three people had been shot.
Ethan, 9, and Sara, 5, were also found in the home. They were flown to an undisclosed Denver hospital.
Investigators said the children were in critical condition but declined to reveal their injuries. Their church pastor said the children had also been attacked with a knife.
Agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation worked throughout the night Tuesday and all day Wednesday alongside officers from the Burlington Police Department and deputies from the Kit Carson Sheriff’s Office to unravel the sequence of events leading to the shootings.
They declined to release details but announced at 2:30 p.m. that the boy had been taken into custody.
“The case has been referred to the district attorney’s office for the filing of formal charges,” said CBI division director Steve Johnson. “We continue to hope for speedy recoveries of the two children in the hospital, and share in the sorrow that the Burlington community is feeling right now.”
Under Colorado law, the boy, whose name is being withheld by The Denver Post because of his age, could face adult charges in the case. Before that could happen, a juvenile court judge would have to find that the boy is a juvenile delinquent who committed a serious crime of violence and that “it would be contrary to the best interests of the juvenile or of the public to retain jurisdiction” in juvenile court.
The boy was taken before a juvenile court judge and will be held for now in a juvenile facility.
Charles and Marilyn Long were deeply religious and attended a Free Evangelical Church
The victims
Charles Long: Father of seven, 50. Delivery driver for Frito-Lay. Former Kit Carson County sheriff’s deputy. Marilyn Long: Mother of seven, 51. Home-schooled her children, ranging in age from 5 to mid-20s. Ethan Long: 9; in critical condition. Sara Long: 5; in critical condition. (Special to The Denver Post)
a block from their home in town, while Charles also led a Seventh-Day Adventist prayer group.
Marilyn Long home- schooled their seven children, ranging in age from 5 to the mid-20s. All were well-known at the church, said pastor Ron Lee. Marilyn Long served as a youth minister, and the boy now being held in the killings helped by greeting parishioners before services and working with video equipment.
“He’s the sweetest kid,” Lee said. “He is very helpful; he’s got a very pleasant personality.”
Charles Long, who was a sheriff’s deputy in Kit Carson County until 1994, was a delivery driver for Frito-Lay and was known to some kids in the neighborhood as the “Frito-Lay man” because he would occasionally hand out chips.
Until mid-2009, he wrote regularly on a health and fitness blog he created, and maintained a Facebook page where he extolled the Bible, gospel music — and rocker Ted Nugent. He noted the joys of living without television (though he also liked the film “Iron Man 2” and NASCAR auto racing). He was a unicycle rider and a guitarist.
“This is shocking to see,” said Chantel Wilkinson, 39, who has lived across the alley from the Longs for about a year but rarely saw the family and didn’t know the children well.
Her son, David Howell, 12, said there was no hint Tuesday evening of problems in the Long home. He saw three of the children playing outside about 5:30 p.m. as he took out the garbage.
“They were all talking, you know, smiles on their faces,” David said.
A little more than an hour later, at 6:40 p.m., the 12-year-old Long child dialed 911 to report the shootings.
When police arrived at the home at 783 Lowell Ave., they found carnage.
The parents were dead, and according to Lee, both children had serious stab wounds.
The children were flown to a Denver hospital, but authorities declined to say which one or who was with them.
All day Wednesday, residents of the town of about 4,200 people drove past the home, which was surrounded by crime- scene tape. Some stopped and dropped off balloons or flowers.
Throughout the town, the reaction was the same: stunned sadness.
A little more than a week ago, Charles and Marilyn Long came into the Panaderia Mexican #2 restaurant for what was a regular weekly date night.
Only this time, they were celebrating his 50th birthday, and he ordered fried ice cream as his treat.
“They were a very quiet family,” said Samantha Rios, 24, who frequently served the Longs’ table. “It’s rocked this place.”
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com Jordan Steffen: 303-954-1794 or jsteffen@denverpost.com
Read more: 12-year-old boy held in deaths of parents, injuries to siblings at Burlington home - The Denver Post 12-year-old boy held in deaths of parents, injuries to siblings at Burlington home – The Denver Post
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