4-year-old pretended to be asleep while dad committed murder-suicide, killing mom and brother

A 4-year-old girl pretended to be asleep as her dad killed her mother, her half-brother, and then himself.

The girl, from Missouri in the United States, was laying in bed when she heard gunshots. After hearing the first gunshot before midnight on Thursday, the 4-year-old entered the living room of the home and saw her mother on the floor. Her father told her to go back to her room, and she did. She heard several shots fired after that.

Police received a 911 call just before midnight on Thursday from a man directing them to a home on Hoyt Drive. The man said police would find three bodies, and then he hung up. Police say the 911 caller did not identify himself, but the call was traced to the father, 31-year-old Dornubari Dugbor’s cellphone.

Police in Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri, a St. Louis suburb, responded to the 911 call were able to enter the home through an unlocked front door. Upon entry, they found the bodies of three people and they also found the 4-year-old girl in a back bedroom pretending to be asleep. The bodies were of Katrina Banks, 31, her son Kevin Johnson, 15, and Dornubari Dugbor, 31. The cellphone with which Dugbor made the 911 call was found in his hand with his body slumped on a couch and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol in his lap.

On Jan. 20, Katrina Banks posted photos on Facebook announcing her engagement to the man identified by police as the shooter, 31-year-old Dornubari Dugbor. Dugbor is the father of Banks’ 4-year-old daughter but not of her 15-year-old son. Banks and Dugbor had known each other as children and reconnected as adults through a church group after Banks had already given birth to her son Johnson.

Police says Dugbor shot Banks first, then shot her son when he came into the living room.

Police believe Dugbor then put the pistol under his chin and then shot himself. Authorities did not reveal a motive for the murder-suicide, and said the young girl would be turned over to relatives.