EERIE

‘Now It’s Too Late’: Dad Texted Ex Before Murder-Suicide

When cops showed up at the scene, Paul Reinhart and his two sons were already dead.

Before Paul Reinhart allegedly killed his two sons, and then himself, on May 4, the unemployed medical device salesman sent his estranged wife Minde an ominous message, according to official reports cited by the Tallahassee Democrat. “You should have put your family first,” Reinhart, a well-liked resident of Gainesville, Florida texted. “Now it’s too late. You’re so selfish. You’re going to live with this the rest of your life.” Minde Reinhart had already contacted law enforcement, and sheriff’s deputies tracked Reinhart’s cell phone and located him at the family’s vacation house about 50 miles away. But by the time they got there, Reinhart, 46, and the boys, ages 11 and 14, were already dead. The house was on fire when authorities arrived; it is not clear exactly when, or how, the deaths occurred. “No words describe what I feel,” Minde Reinhart wrote on Facebook, replying to condolences posted by her sons’ former youth baseball teammates. “But knowing they loved every second of life and baseball will keep their memories alive.”