California IN BRIEF : LAGUNA NIGUEL : 2 Daughters Slain; Marine’s Wife Held

The wife of a high-ranking officer at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station shot and killed her two young daughters late Sunday and then turned a gun on herself in an unsuccessful suicide attempt, authorities said. Kristine Cushing, 39, described as a Brownie troop leader and volunteer in her daughter’s third-grade class, was booked on two counts of murder after she was treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Lt. Richard Olson of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said. Cushing was being held in the deaths of her children, Amy Elizabeth, 8, and Stephanie Marie Cushing, 4. Their bodies were found Sunday night in the master bedroom of their family home overlooking Saddleback Valley. No motive for the deaths has been established, but Olson said Cushing was in the process of divorcing her husband, Lt. Col. John P. Cushing Jr., 38, a fighter pilot who was on a fishing trip at the time of the killings.