Family of 5 dead in apparent murder-suicide

MINNEAPOLIS Police officers doing a welfare check Thursday at a home in the west metro city of Greenwood came upon a scene their chief called “unspeakable” the bodies of five family members, including three children.

The five, whose bodies bore traumatic injuries and were scattered around the large house on Channel Drive, appeared to be the victims of a multiple murder-suicide, said South Lake Minnetonka Interim Police Chief Mike Siitari.

The family a father, mother and three teenage children had not been seen for a couple of days at work or school, and the father’s co-workers had asked police to check on them, he said.

“This is a complex crime scene” that will take several days to sort through, Siitari said.

He declined to release the victims’ names, ages, or manner of death, or to say who might have been the killer.

The home, built in 1998, is near Lake Minnetonka’s St. Albans Bay. It last sold in September 2011 for $2 million to husband and wife Brian and Karen Short, according to Hennepin County property records. The couple have three children, a 17-year-old son and two daughters, ages 14 and 15, according to public records. They are a senior, sophomore and freshman at Minnetonka High School, friends said.

Brian Short, a nurse, founded a popular website, AllNurses.com, that provides information and resources for and about the nursing profession. His business is headquartered in Excelsior.

On Thursday night, a friend of the Shorts said she and others thought it was strange that the younger Short daughter did not show up for school or a soccer game this week, and that Karen Short did not return text messages inquiring about their whereabouts. Brian and Karen Short were regulars at the girl’s games, the friend said.

Neighbor Doug Plocek found police cars were blocking his street when he came home Thursday and heard that there was one death in the Shorts’ house, then an update that it was the whole family.

“The neighbors went into shock,” he said. “To me, there was no indication whatsoever how that could have happened.”

He said Brian Short always appeared happy, easily greeting neighbors and sharing his love of cars, particularly Teslas. Plocek said he often saw him out clearing snow in the winter or his children walking with friends on their quiet street, which only has nine houses on it.

“They were good neighbors,” he said. “This whole thing, we’re trying to wrap our heads around it.”

Of the neighborhood, Plocek said, “We’ve never even had a break-in. To have something of this magnitude and it involves children it just tears me apart.”

As evening fell, investigators from the South Lake Minnetonka police and Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office continued their work at the scene. The Hennepin County medical examiner’s office was to conduct autopsies.

Scanner traffic between police and dispatchers indicated that all of the victims appeared to have died of severe injuries. After entering the home, officers secured a small dog, then began a search and found the bodies, one by one, in different areas of the house.

The scanner discussion, several minutes long, offered a window into what officers found:

“Body in the house,” said an officer, found in a bedroom with a “traumatic injury.”

Dispatch asked, “More than one?”

“I believe so,” the officer responded.

A few minutes later, the other four bodies were found.

Officer: “Victim 2 found in the basement, garage. ... Third body, basement. ... Fourth, basement.”

Then a different officer reported to dispatch, “Another victim, lower-level bedroom.”

Siitari said he has never seen a scene so grim in his three decades of police work, and that finding the bodies was extremely difficult for the officers involved.

“There’re no words to describe it. ... It’s a tragedy,” he said. “This is a tough one to handle.”

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