Warwick residents stunned after death of man and child in apparent murder-suicide

WARWICK, R.I. (WLNE) — A child and man were found dead inside of a home on Frawley Street in Warwick after an early morning call that a child had been shot and the suspect was armed inside of the home.

Nearby neighbors said incidents like this don’t happen around this area.

“I am very shocked, you don’t hear a lot of things like this happening around here, I feel like it is quiet,” neighbor Bridget Rainville said.

Bridget, a mother herself, was at a loss for words.

“How could you hurt a child? I have two of my own, I could not even imagine,” Rainville added. “To hear something as tragic, so close down the street. It is very sad.”

Witnesses in the area said dozens of officers responded to the scene, including SWAT teams.

“We heard three flash bangs, I would assume, and about ten minutes later a stretcher went into the house and came out with someone on it,” witness Trisha Jacobs said.

Police said once they were able to get inside of the home they found that child dead as well as a man suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Lippit Elementary School and Warwick Veterans Memorial Middle School were temporarily in a shelter-in-place Thursday morning.

“We are so close to the middle school; we are a street away,” Jacobs added. “There were kids that were just going into school, also these kids that are going to deal with this. It is awful, the world we live in. There are so many other options, it is sad.”

An investigation is still ongoing and police said they are still working to piece together how the tragic situation unfolded.