Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputies discovered a gruesome scene on January 20. A mother of three was killed by her estranged husband in a murder-suicide.
Two of the women’s children were shared by her dead husband.
Deputies found Brittany Carter, 34, dead at her house in Wellington, Florida with a gunshot wound. The 34-year-old mother of one girl and two boys was shot and killed by her husband, Stephen P. Smith, 45, before he killed himself.
Carter had just been hired as a real estate agent the day before. Her new boss described her as “intelligent, charismatic and energetic.”
The two were found at a home in the Olympia community at around 5 pm with gunshot wounds.
Friends remembered the “vibrant and fierce” mom and said her priority was her children.
Family and friends memorialized her showing framed photos of her with her kids, with a sign in block letters that read “MOM.”
In Florida alone there were over 103,000 reports of domestic violence in 2021. The Florida Law Enforcement Uniform Crime Department reports 220 of the incidents resulted in fatalities.
The CDC published that suicide deaths made up over 50% of all gun deaths in the US in 2020.
In 2022, Palm Beach County, Florida recorded three murder-suicide cases.