Police: Dad intentionally drove family into lake in suspected murder-suicide

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Over the weekend, an Arizona father apparently drove his wife and three children into a lake in a murder-suicide.

Glenn Baxter died alongside his wife Danica and their three children Reighn, Nazyiah and Zariya early Sunday morning after crashing into Tempe Town Lake, and police say it was not an accident.

“Mr. Baxter took deliberate action,” police spokesman Michael Pooley said, according to the Associated Press. “It’s absolutely horrific what happened to those little kids and their mother.”

In surveillance footage, Baxter can be seen getting out of the car to inspect the barriers around the lake before driving “at a high rate of speed” toward the lake. When the car hit the barrier, it flipped over into the water.

Although a fisherman jumped in to try and save the family and was later joined by police officers, the family died in the crash.

Police did find a handgun inside the car but were not sure that the family was forced into the car at gunpoint. However, the  children’s great-grandfather said that Baxter and Danica were estranged and has doubted that the crash was accidental before the police announced that it was, in fact, done purposefully.

“She is never up at that time of the night,” George Britt said of Danica. “Never, never.”