A Texas mother who had shot to death her two young children and their grandmother had just lost custody of the kids to their father as part of a divorce, his lawyer reveals as the victims were recently buried.
The bodies of Karina Dietering, 37, of San Antonio, her two kids, Robert, 3, and Clara, 5, and her 68-year-old mother Galina Tenzeyevna Taypina had been found inside their apartment on April 27, according to police.
The children’s father Jason Dietering was the one who discovered the tragic scene.
The dad’s attorney Charles Hardy said Diertering went to meet the mom to get the kids two days earlier, after he had just won their custody, WOAI reports. However, when he went to meet the mother to make the exchange, she was a no-show.
He told KSAT: ‘When (Karina) did a no show for the exchange, (Jason) frantically made phone calls. He waited the appropriate time and then asked for welfare checks.’
‘(Jason) finally got there on Sunday and again asked for a welfare check but refused to go into the apartment. Monday morning, he looked into the window and found something was amiss,’ Hardy continued. ‘He actually broke into the apartment and found the scene.’
Police, upon being contacted by the father, went to the home at the Sedona Ranch Apartments.
The victims were laid out in two bedrooms, San Antonio Police Chief William McMannus says.
Authorities said the mother took her own life after shooting the children and their grandmother.
Funerals were held for the children on Saturday. The mother also was buried with the kids, as requested by their father, his lawyer says.
‘He said it was not about the mother,’ Hardy told KSAT. ‘It was about the children.’
Hardy explained how the parents initially split and ended up in divorce court.
He said that the family originally was from Mississippi, and that the mother had convinced the father to allow her to relocate to Texas temporarily for a job opportunity that never existed. ‘She lived in San Antonio long enough for Texas to have time to take jurisdiction over their divorce case,’ Hardy says.
Over the course of a year, the parents were able to share custody of the children. However, a judge granted full custody to the father in Mississippi where he lived upon the recommendation of two top psychologists, says the lawyer.
The custody swap should have taken place in Orange, Texas.
Instead the mother never showed up, Hardy says. He said the mom, ‘killed her mother, these two wonderful children and herself instead of following the court’s order.’
‘Terrible. I can’t even imagine. I can’t even describe it,’ says Hardy, reacting to the murder-suicide found by his client.
There was no previous indication the mother would harm the children, he says.
