‘AWFUL TRAGEDY’

Mother, 7-Year-Old Dead in Murder-Suicide: Medical Examiner

The mother and child were found in their home Thursday after a call reporting an unresponsive woman.

A Connecticut woman and her 7-year-old child were reported dead Thursday in what the state’s medical examiner is calling a murder-suicide. Westport, Connecticut, police received a call Thursday informing them of an unresponsive woman, leading them to the bodies of both the woman and the child. In an interview with the New York Post on Friday, the state medical examiner said the woman, Tracy Do, had injuries consistent with self-harm while the daughter, Layla Malon, was drowned. According to court documents, Do and her ex-boyfriend, Eric John Malon, had been in a dispute over the couple’s $1.8 million home, with both sides suing each other over who got to live there. The former couple’s eldest child, a 13-year-old, was not with Do at the time. Police said the investigation is ongoing.

Coleytown Elementary School, the school Layla Malon attended, closed Friday and offered mental health services for those who knew her and her mother.

“The community is dealing with an awful tragedy,” Westport First Selectman Jim Marpe said, according to the Connecticut Post. “The entire community shares in their grief and sadness. Westport is a caring community and I know we will come together to support those who need to begin the healing process.”