Conn. Wife Pleaded for Life, Daughters' Safety Over Text Message

July 2, 2009 — -- In the end, the pleas for help came too late.

As Alice Morrin's husband roamed their Vernon, Conn., home, armed with a knife and gun, the mother of two was sending frantic text messages to a friend and placing a call to 911.

The Hartford Courant reported on a series of text messages Morrin, 43, sent to an unidentified friend late Sunday night begging for help.

"Jim just dragged me in our room put loaded gun to my head," read one of the messages. "Hurry please he would hear me on the phone. I talked him down."

She then texted of her concern for her daughters, Erica, 15, and Shannon, 9, who also were in the home.

Just before midnight a call came into 911 -- Morrin told dispatchers that her husband had a gun and she needed help. Her screaming could be heard in the background.

Two minutes later, the Courant reported, came her final text message : "What should I do if he hears me. I'm dead. God."

Police, who also received a 911 call from the friend Morin had been text messaging, sped to the house on Gerald Drive. But as the first responding officer approached the house, Vernon Police Lt. John Kelley told ABCNews.com, shots were fired. Then there was quiet.

Police broke into the house and found that James Morrin, 45, had shot his wife to death, and then turned the gun on himself, using a shotgun.

The couple's eldest daughter had escaped the house, Kelley said, and the younger daughter was found hiding in a bedroom.

Kelley confirmed that text messages were sent back and forth between Alice Morrin and a co-worker just prior to the shooting, but that Vernon police were not releasing their contents.

The Hartford Courant is a partner of Hartford's Fox affiliate, WTIC Fox61 News, where Alice Morrin worked.

Connecticut State Police were called in to help gather and document the evidence found at the scene.

Morrin's brother, Mike Mealy, described his little sister -- the youngest of six children -- as being "very independent."

"She was the best," he said. "In any situation, she would make it fun."

She was also highly thought of at her job where, according to the Courant, she recently left her position as an assignment editor to become an executive assistant to Richard Graziano, general manager for Fox 61 and publisher of the Hartford Courant.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with them and Alice's entire family," Graziano said in a statement. "Words cannot begin to describe what Alice meant to the Tribune family. She is an angel looking down on us and her daughters."

James Morrin was a project manager for the state Department of Transportation.

'She Wanted to Do it All'

Mealy said Erica and her mother were especially close, best friends, and she enjoyed hiking with both of her daughters. The children, he said, are now with family members.

"What I've heard [is] that one is in denial," he said of the couple's youngest child, "and the other is coping as best she could."

Mealy said he and his sister were close growing up. The two of them were the youngest two siblings, separated from the older four by several years.

There was no limit to her plans, he said.

"She wanted to do it all," he added.

Mealy said he didn't know James Morrin very well, having moved to Florida while his sister and her family stayed in Connecticut. But the family never saw anything like this coming.

"I didn't know him well enough," he said. "He's a little different."

James Morrin's family also was struggling to make sense of the killing and suicide. His father, also named James Morrin, told ABCNews.com from his Rhode Island home that the family is "very emotional."

"It would be very easy to go into glorious detail about my son's life ... but unfortunately the end was no success," he said, declining further comment. "This is a very tough time for us right now."