Cincinnati police are investigating a murder-suicide that has left three family members dead just months after another murder-suicide of two other relatives.
According to LEX 18 News, 19-year-old Eric Johnson Jr. shot his mother, Darlene Flores, 38, and his 16-year-old brother Rodrigo Johnson before turning the gun on himself. This tragedy happened less than six months after Flores’ ex-husband shot their 6-year-old daughter in a murder-suicide.
The outlet reports around 5:30 a.m. on Monday, the Cincinnati Police Department responded to a call about “unknown trouble” at the household. It possibly came from Johnson’s friends, who claimed they received a startling call from him a few minutes earlier to say “he loved them and he was sorry.”
Once they arrived, police found “three unresponsive victims suffering from gunshot wounds.”
The Hamilton County Coroner’s Office confirmed the deaths of Flores and her 16-year-old son as homicides and Johnson’s a suicide.
The Cincinnati police shared a statement on Twitter regarding the shooting.
Neighbors reacted to the tragedy by acknowledging how loving and welcoming the family was.
A family friend, Robert Davis, told WLWT News he “dropped to the floor” when he received the call. “Most of us in the neighborhood have single mothers. So, they raised us. Miss Darlene, she was very sweet, like another mother. Took us in. Anything that we needed or asked for, they always gave it to us. And they taught us life lessons and stuff.”
As loving as the family was, they were no strangers to catastrophe.
On Aug. 21, 2022, 40-year-old Eric Johnson killed his 6-year-old daughter Iyla in a murder-suicide following a “custody exchange dispute,” WCPO 9 News reported.
Friends say losing his younger sister weighed heavily on Eric Jr.
Timyone Andrew, 18, told LEX 18 News, “He loved her more than anything like losing her just destroyed my boy deep down.”
Another tribulation possibly weighing on the young man was his involvement in the death of 18-year-old honors student Serreno Foster Jr.
WCPO 9 News covered Foster’s murder, who was found dead in his car in Dec. 2020, and Fox 19 Now recently reported authorities said Eric Johnson Jr. was responsible for Serreno Foster Jr.’s death, confessing to the murder in a suicide note.
Foster’s mother, Tangie Hardy, told Fox 19 Now, “To hear his whole family was annihilated in less than a year, it’s devastating, and it’s heartbreaking. Because… had they arrested him, I feel like a lot of lives would’ve been spared.”
“This is not justice for my son,” she said. “This is closure for my family, yes… But look at how many lives are affected. It’s sad, really.”
