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CNN Saturday Morning News

Family of Six Dies in Apparent Murder-Homicide

Aired March 16, 2002 - 09:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Investigators are beginning to piece together what led to a tragedy this week in Oregon. It was the concern of neighbors that prompted sheriff's deputies to search a home there. What they found will no doubt haunt that community forever, a family of six, shot to death in an apparent case of murder-suicide.

CNN's James Hattori has our story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Residents in rural Yamhill County, Oregon, were worried about a neighbor family they hadn't seen for weeks. They contacted a sheriff's deputy Thursday night, who through a window in this home spotted what appeared to be a body. Investigators then made a grisly discovery.

BRAD BERRY, YAMHILL COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: The team then gained entry into the home, and after that the bodies of the entire Bryant family were found, four children and Mr. and Mrs. Bryant were found in the home.

HATTORI: Thirty-seven-year-old Robert Bryant, a self-employed landscaper, lived here with his 37-year-old wife plus two sons and two daughters, all between 9 and 15 years old. Investigators say Bryant used shotguns to kill them, then himself. The children's bodies were found in their beds.

BERRY: Our best guess at this time, and it is still a guess, is that they were killed on the 23rd of February.

UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: I think that the impact here is on the community with something like this happened. I been here 34 years as a police officer, and I certainly have not seen anything like this.

HATTORI: School officials say they tried calling the home and checking the residence over the past two weeks but got no response, so they called the sheriff's office.

BERRY: I know a deputy had been out there before, checking on a status check, and with no answer to the door, of course, made the assumption that nobody was home.

HATTORI (on camera): The Bryants moved here from California last summer. They're described by some as a normal family. Now investigators will be talking with neighbors and relatives to try and find out why this family met such an abnormally tragic end.

James Hattori, CNN, near McMinnville, Oregon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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