A Kentucky mom faces two murder charges after cops say she inexplicably shot her two young sons, aged 6 and 9, dead inside their home on Wednesday morning.
Col. Alex Payne, a chief deputy with the Bullitt County Sheriff's Office, speculated that 32-year-old Tiffanie Lucas may have turned violent due to “pure evil,” a mental health crisis, substance abuse, or a combination of the three.
“Pick your poison,” he said, according to WLKY. “None of it’s good. The result is horrific.”
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Lucas’ Facebook profile appeared to portray her as a loving mother who just last month coordinated Star Wars halloween costumes for her and her two boys.
She previously spent a month behind bars for a drug possession conviction, authorities said, but she didn’t have any criminal history to suggest she could be violent.
An arrest affidavit said cops arrived at Lucas’ home in Shepherdsville—a Louisville exurb—after a neighbor who “felt something was off” had entered the home and made a grisly discovery. The two boys were clearly shot and “covered in blood,” and a gun was lying on a bed nearby, the affidavit said.
The boys, who weren’t identified by police, were rushed to a children’s hospital in Louisville but couldn’t be saved, the affidavit said. It added that Lucas was arrested at 200 Salt Well Court, which is where Bullitt County Emergency Medical Services is located, suggesting she may have traveled with her sons to the hospital.
The slain siblings were half brothers, Payne said. He added that the dad of one of the boys had died previously and the father of the other boy was not immediately located, but other relatives were notified.
Three neighbors who spoke to WLKY didn’t indicate there were any signs to suggest Lucas was capable of such a crime. Amanda Mangis told the station that she remembered arriving home from her overnight shifts to see the two boys waiting for the school bus.
“It makes me sick,” she said.
In a Mother’s Day post on Facebook in May, Lucas gushed that her sons were “always together” and “never apart,” adding that together they were three souls and one heart. She added that she wouldn’t know “how to smile, love, or survive if it wasn’t for them.”
Her Facebook bio read in all caps, “Jay and Peanuts world forever.” In a slew of comments under her last Facebook post, from Halloween, relatives indicated that Jay and Peanut were pet names for her sons.
Talia Crutcher, who identified herself as Lucas’ friend, flamed her former pal on Facebook, saying the double murder made her sick to her stomach.
“We was literally all together last Sunday and everything was 100,” she wrote. “You was your normal self the kids was happy we was happy! God, I can only imagine the hell you have been putting your babies through all these years and they still loved you! To know that you killed them even though they loved you so much.”
Crutcher included more than two dozen photos in her post showing Lucas and her slain sons. She speculated that Lucas must have been “hearing voices” or had some sort of mental breakdown.
“This is not the Tiffany I know,” she said. “She would never hurt her babies.”
Others appeared to be equally shocked and enraged.
“From the bottom of my heart I hope you get what you deserve and realize the true extent of your actions,” Laney Jones wrote, tagging Lucas on Facebook. “Because you took them from all of us.”
Lucas was taken to the Bullitt County Jail, where she was being held on Thursday on a bond of $2 million, records show.
