The brothers, both suffering from depression, made a pact that if nothing goes right in a year’s time, they’d kill the whole family and then themselves. A family of six was found dead inside a house early on Monday morning in Texas. The deaths seem to point towards an apparent murder-suicide by two sons. Reports suggest that the two brothers made a pact to kill themselves, and decided to take the whole family along with them.
Officers responded to a home in the 1500 block of Pine Bluff Drive at around 1 a.m. on Monday for a welfare check when they discovered the six bodies of a grandparent, two parents, and three children. The call is said to have come from a worried neighbor who was concerned that someone at the home was suicidal.
All six of them had died due to gunshot wounds. It is believed that the massacre was carried out by the two brothers, identified by a family friend as 19-year-old Farhan Towhid and 21-year-old Tanvir Towhid. “It looks like two teenage sons entered into an agreement that they were going to commit suicide and that they were going to take their family members with them,” Allen police Sgt. Jon Felty said.
Authorities have reportedly not released the names of the victims, but a family friend confirmed that 19-year-old twins Farhan and Farben Towhid, their 21-year-old brother Tanvir Towhid and their parents Iren and Towhidul Islam died in the incident, along with the grandmother.
“When I heard the news I couldn’t breathe for 20 to 30 minutes,” family friend Shawn Ahsan said. “How could it happen in a community like us? We’re so close and we visit each other and talk to each other, we have dinner and stuff, but inside the house … his children were unhappy for some reason and one thing led to another.”
The murder happened sometime on Sunday, but the bodies weren’t discovered until Monday morning. Felty also mentioned that the family, who are believed to have immigrated from Bangladesh, had no prior records of problems at home. However, a suicide note by Farhan was discovered, and the letter, which was published through Google Docs begins with the words: “Hey everyone. I killed myself and my family. If I’m going to die, I might as well get some attention.”
In the letter, the teen talks about his depression and goes into graphic details about cutting himself with scissors and knives, until he hit a “breaking point” and told his father about his struggle. He got the help he needed and was on the road to recovery, but he wasn’t completely okay.
“My life was perfect, but that didn’t change the fact that I was depressed,” he wrote. “I would still have the urges to cut myself or end up crying myself to sleep. I tried doubling my medication which worked, but only temporarily. Every solution was always temporary.”
Soon, Farhan dropped out of college and spent much of his time watching The Officewith his older brother, who he said also suffered from crippling depression, despite being a “genius.” He then rambled on about the sitcom and then shared that he had come to an agreement with his brother that “if we can’t fix everything in a year, we’ll kill ourselves and our family.”
Apparently, they decided to kill their family before killing themselves because “they would be miserable. They would spend the rest of their lives feeling guilt, despair, and a multitude of other adjectives that mean sad. Instead of having to deal with the aftermath of my suicide, I could just do them a favor and take them with me. None of us would ever have to feel sad ever again.”
He added: “I love my family. I genuinely do. And that’s exactly why I decided to kill them.” Their plan was simple; “We get two guns. I take one and shoot my sister and grandma, while my brother kills our parents with the other. Then we take ourselves out.”
In the suicide note, he also mocked the gun control laws in the country saying it didn’t take a lot for them to get their hands on a gun. “There was a question asking if he had any mental illnesses but—get this—he lied. He literally just said no. They didn’t ask for proof or if he was taking any medication (he was). … thanks for making the process so easy.”