Utah man who killed family vented his anger in suicide note

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah man who f atally shot his spouse, her mom and the couple’s 5 youngsters after he used to be investigated for kid abuse left a suicide note announcing he “would rather rot in hell” than proceed enduring what he referred to as controlling habits by way of his spouse, investigators wrote in a file launched on Friday.

The claims in the suicide note left by way of Michael Haight, 42, stand in stark contract to conclusions by way of investigators in the 57-page file that overwhelmingly painting Haight, and now not his spouse, as controlling and abusive. The file cites the family’s communications ahead of the killings and interviews from group contributors performed after the January tragedy.

“This is nonsense and I can’t handle it for one more day. We will not be a burden on society. I kept asking for help and you wouldn’t listen,” Michael Haight, 42, wrote in the note incorporated in the file launched by way of town of Enoch.

“I would rather rot in hell than to put up with another day of this manipulation and control over me,” Haight wrote.

Haight’s legal professional, Matt Munson, didn’t straight away reply to request for remark Friday.

The file builds off paperwork launched after the murder-suicide that detailed how Haight got rid of firearms from the house, used to be investigated on suspicion of kid abuse, and searched on-line for “gunshot in a house” in the lead-up to the shootings.

It paints an image of Haight as a unstable husband excited about keeping up a facade of perfection all through the southern Utah group in which the family lived, the place nearly all of citizens are contributors of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The file additionally main points how bedding used to be laid over all however certainly one of his kids’s our bodies in bedrooms all through the house. Body digicam photos launched in conjunction with the file displays a tidy house.

Investigators additionally interviewed a neighbor who mentioned she used to be woke up at the evening ahead of the 8 our bodies had been found out when she heard a couple of “bangs” that she assumed had been fireworks.

The file describes the cases main as much as the killings, which happened two weeks after Haight’s spouse, Tausha Haight, filed for divorce.

People with regards to the Haights interviewed by way of investigators whose names had been redacted in the file mentioned that Michael Haight had misplaced his task at Allstate Insurance in close by Cedar City, Utah and used to be looking for to start out an unbiased company.

They mentioned, in spite of his spouse’s needs and pursuit of divorce, that he remained residing in the family house as much as the tragedy with his spouse, 5 kids and mother-in-law, who used to be there out of protection issues for her daughter.

The file additionally main points how Haight, his spouse, mother-in-law and 5 kids had been discovered in bedrooms all through the family house at the afternoon of Jan. 4 after an individual police described as a “family friend” entered thru an open door.

Police had long past to test at the Haights previous in the afternoon after issues about their welfare had been reported, however left with out reporting any indicators or observations of violence.

“No one answered the door. It didn’t appear that anyone was in the home since no noise could be heard,” an Enoch Police officer wrote in a file summarizing his discuss with to the family house ahead of our bodies had been found out.

Tausha Haight, her mom Gail Earl and her four-year-old kid had been discovered in the couple’s first ground bed room laying on pillows, partly coated with blankets and surrounded by way of blood. The different kids had been discovered in bedrooms all through the house, they all in their beds excluding for the seven-year-old at the ground and Haight, who used to be discovered mendacity at the ground on a dozing bag.

The southern Utah murder-suicide is amongst greater than 30 family mass killings that experience befell in the United States during the last two years. They’ve came about just about each and every 3-1/2 weeks over the past twenty years on reasonable, in keeping with a database compiled by way of USA Today, The Associated Press and Northeastern University on killings the place 4 or extra other folks had been killed, now not together with the offender.