Man Shot Entire Family, Self

A struggling school janitor shot his two young children, wife, and family beagle before turning his weapon on himself, Maryland police say. “It is possible that financial difficulties were part of the motive,” a police spokesman said, though the janitor, Charles Dalton, left no suicide note. The bodies of both children, Charles, 14, and Emmaline, 7, were found in their beds. Dalton also shot the beagle in a crate inside the house’s front door. Dalton was a cabinet installer who ran his own business and also worked the night shift as a janitor for Montgomery County schools. Neighbors said his home had been on the market for at least a year, and the family was quiet and church-going. There have been at least four other family murder-suicides in the last two and half years in Maryland.