Police in Bedford, Massachusetts, arrested a 24-year-old woman Thursday after she had allegedly shot her parents to death earlier that day.
Jessica Cavallaro faces charges of murder, assault and possessing a firearm illegally, CBS News reported. She also faces charges of battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, according to CBS News.
Cavallaro’s 56-year-old parents, Thelma Tatten and Mark Cavallaro, were found shot inside a vehicle parked on Washington Street when law enforcement responded to the scene after a call they had received shortly before 9 a.m., WBTS-TV reported.
Tatten had already passed away due to her wounds. Mark was seriously wounded. Emergency personnel rushed him to a nearby hospital, where later died.
The daughter, according to court documents, had told her boyfriend’s parents, with whom she lived, that she would be going to eat breakfast with her parents, WCVB-TV reported.
Thirty minutes before Cavallaro left, she had told her boyfriend’s parents that she was having a panic attack, as a result of which she briefly retreated to her bedroom, court documents said, according to the news station.
Cavallaro’s parents were waiting outside to take their daughter out for breakfast when Cavallaro entered the vehicle and shot the couple in the back of their heads, prosecutors told reporters.
Afterward, the suspect entered her boyfriend’s house saying “I just shot my parents,” the boyfriend’s father told police, WCVB reported.
Prosecutors said Cavallaro took a gun from her boyfriend’s safe. The suspect did not have a license for carrying or using guns, according to prosecutors.
Investigators have yet to determine the motive for the murders. Cavallaro has no prior criminal record, WBTS-TV reported.
Cavallaro is in jail awaiting her trial without the possibility of bail, according to CBS News. She was arragined Thursday afternoon in the Concord District Court.
The suspect’s next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 20, the outlet reported. She is also set to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
A woman who knew Cavallaro from high school told WBTS that the incident was “unexpected” and “really out of character” for the suspect, adding that during their time together in high school, Jessica was a “very sweet girl” who was “very to herself.”
“She’s the absolute last person anybody would ever expect to do something like this,” Cavallaro’s former schoolmate told the news station.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said that such “horrific incidents of domestic violence” have been happening “too often lately,” CBS News reported.
“They also point to what we talk about all the time, which is the prevalence of guns and the availability of firearms,” Ryan added.
“Many of the incidents we’ve had in the last few weeks, last couple of months, have involved firearms in the hands of people who should not have had them.”