“I just don’t understand why they did what they did. I just don’t understand why he ended up in that situation…,” Marilyn Nelson said, after discovering that her son, his wife, and her six grandchildren died in a suspected murder-suicide incident at their home.After receiving a 911 call on Thursday afternoon, police rushed to a house fire near West Houston Street and South Elm Place in
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Eight
bodies were found inside the home that was determined to belong to Brian and Brittney Nelson.
According to the police investigation, they are looking at a murder-suicide angle as they believe that no one died due to the fire. They are currently awaiting final findings by the medical examiner.
Marilyn and Danny, Brian’s parents, said that Brian called them on Thursday afternoon to ask if they could watch the children. Instead, the couple asked him to bring the kids to their house and Brian agreed. When he did not arrive on time, they tried to contact him at around 6 pm but he did not respond.
That was when they saw the footage of the fire on the 6 o’clock news.
The two identified the children as grandson Brian II, age 13, granddaughter Brantley, 9, grandsons Vegeta, 7, Ragnar, 5, and Kurgan, 2; and granddaughter Britannica, 1. The children were named after Brian’s favorite TV shows. They were all found at a bedroom at the back of the house, where the fire started, while their parents were in the front.
In 2020, the Nelsons filed for bankruptcy, with $8,803 and nine guns in assets and $138,000 worth of debt, most of which came from student loans. Both declared that they were unemployed and continued to depend on federal and state benefits.
Mr. Nelson’s parents also said that their son constantly suffered from extreme headaches due to a concussion from a few years ago, when he was stocking supplies while working in a retail chain. His wife was said to be stressed due to childcare, homeschooling, and her own health issues. According to the grandfather, the stress must have caught up to them, leading them to do what they did to their family.