Deaths of Mother, Girl Called Murder-Suicide

A San Bernardino County woman shot and killed her 9-year-old daughter, then turned the gun on herself in a locked Yorba Linda hotel room, police said Saturday.

The woman, identified as Kathlene A. Lawrenz, 38, of Highland, and her daughter, Jessica, were discovered Friday at 1:34 p.m., after employees of the Country Suites hotel at 22677 Oakcrest Circle heard what sounded like gunshots and tried to make contact with the mother and daughter.

After repeated telephone calls and knocks on the hotel-room door, police entered the room. They found the mother and daughter lying near each other, within reach of a handgun. Both had been shot in the head, police said.

In Highland, a suburban development at the foot of the San Bernardino mountains, friends and neighbors said Lawrenz had been behaving erratically for several months since breaking up with her boyfriend.

She had lost about 50 pounds in a short period of time and kept her house lights on all night, they said.

“She cared a lot about her daughter,” said Marti Torres, who lives across the street from Lawrenz. “She was always checking to see how she was doing. They both didn’t go out very much; they were real homebodies and kept to themselves.”

A woman who identified herself as Lawrenz’s mother drove up to the house Saturday evening in tears, bearing bags of dog food for her daughter’s two small dogs.

“She was in turmoil for a long time,” the woman said. “I don’t know why she did it.”

Brea Police Lt. Clyde Wason said the coroner’s office determined Saturday that it was Kathlene Lawrenz who shot her daughter and herself. Wason said he did not know if there was a note left at the scene.

The deaths are being investigated as a murder-suicide.