Father of 4 kids shot by Wyoming mom in murder-suicide is ‘so angry’ — and ‘a mess’ that depression drove her to such horrors
The Wyoming father of two girls shot by their mother Tranyelle Harshman at their Byron home has spoken of his fury after the death of his daughter Brailey Blackmer as younger sibling Olivia remains…
nypost.com
The father and stepfather of the four little girls shot by their mom before she turned the gun on herself says he is “so angry” — but also “a mess” because she was a loving, “incredible mom” destroyed by mental illness.
The grieving husband and dad told KTVQ the overwhelming loss was “something beyond what I can comprehend.”
Cliff Harshman lost his 2-year-old daughters, Brooke and Jordan, and 9-year-old stepdaughter, Brailey, in the bloodbath Monday, while his other stepdaughter, Olivia, 7, is still fighting for her life.
His wife, Tranyelle Harshman, 32, shot all four of her kids at their home in Byron, Wyoming — then turned the gun on herself after calling 911.
“I’m a mess,” he said in a phone interview. “I’m so angry. I don’t even know how to explain this to you. I’m so angry with her for the decision that was made.”
But much of that anger was directed at the mental health issues that he believes drove his wife to such horrors, similar to other cases, such as Lindsay Clancy, who is accused of killing her three kids while suffering postpartum depression.
“People don’t understand how mental illness isn’t just a willpower thing. It’s chemical imbalances in your brain,” Harshman told KTVQ of the post-traumatic stress disorder and postpartum depression his wife had battled for at least five years.
“She was an incredible mom and she loved those kids,” he insisted.
Tranyelle Harshman was struggling with postpartum depression and PTSD.
Cliff Harshman was helping to raise the two older girls, Bailey and Olivia, with his wife after she split from their dad, Quinn Blackmer, who is also struggling to comprehend the violence.
“I’m furious. I’m trying my hardest to bury that for a while and to focus on the now because that anger isn’t going to bring my child back,” Blackmer told KTVQ.
“There’s no textbook. There’s no playbook. There are very few people who have gone through this,” he said.
His younger daughter, Olivia, has been sedated and will be placed in a longer-term coma as doctors battle to lessen the swelling in her brain that she suffered as a result of the gunshot.
Blackmer said the early signs were positive after a CT scan on Wednesday showed no serious blood vessel damage. He added that she had been semi-responsive to touch.
Blackmer said he had been singing to his daughter every night in her hospital bed to try to keep a connection to her.
“It makes all of us here very optimistic that things are trending forward,” Blackmer told KTVQ.
Blackmer, a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints, said Brailey was looking forward to being baptized into the church.
He said he had relied on his faith to get him through the unthinkable tragedy.
The horrific case has eerie similarities to that of Lindsay Clancy, the mom accused of strangling her three kids in a fit of postpartum depression in 2023 inside their home in the Boston suburbs,
Recently, a judge ruled that the New Yorker magazine must release all the audio recordings from its interview with Clancy’s husband, Patrick, regarding her mental state in the lead-up to the tragedy.
The magazine’s publisher, Conde Nast, was hit with a summons Monday to hand over the interview with Patrick Clancy in which he said she’d heard a voice telling her to kill their three children, the Boston Globe reported.
“She did not sound like my wife,” he was quoted as saying at the time.
if a Man did this they would never even try excuse his actions but when it's a foid she was "destroyed by mental illness" Fucking ridiculous.
