HOUSTON: The man accused of killing six members of his former wife’s family, including four children, at their suburban Houston home collapsed in court on Friday.
Ronald Lee Haskell, 33, was in court wearing orange prison attire for a hearing after being charged on Thursday with capital murder in the shooting deaths of his former wife’s sister, her husband and four of their children, aged 4 to 14.
Haskell’s public defender, said his client had been in and out of hospitals in Utah and California with a history of mental illness and that he wasn’t taking prescribed medication at the time of the murders.
Haskell’s “Yes, sir” to the judge after his rights were read and then fainted to the floor as details of the crime were read in court by the prosecutor.
Haskell is accused of fatally shooting two boys ages 4 and 14, two girls ages 7 and 9. And their parents Stephen Stay, 39, and Katie Stay, 33. Cassidy Stay, 15, survived a gunshot wound to the head and is expected to recover.
Haskell, pretending to be a FedEx delivery man entered the home when Cassidy told him to wait while she got a pen to take down his name and number.
“Maybe reality is finally settling in,” she told that to reporters afterward when asked what prompted Haskell to collapse.
A neighbour previously told that Haskell was angry with the family for facilitating the divorce from his former wife, who didn’t live at the house and was not harmed in the incident.
Cassidy Stay, left for dead, called police and alerted them to the shootings and said that Haskell was going to the home of more relatives.
Police intercepted him before he arrived. American police further said that they have once arrested Haskell for domestic violence when he lived there with his then-wife from 2006 to 2013.
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