Suicide is one thing, doing it in front of your kids...
Stuff like this happens, but it is so bizarre that people don't even really gossip about it.
I was visiting a local bar around my hometown about a year ago and the barmaid told me that someone that grew up around there had finished his term in the military. He was in the bar, walked out and came back in, sat for a bit, then pulled a handgun out and shot himself in the head. Smallish bar.
People go nuts all the time, one engineering student here at the university went streaking through one of the buildings and cut himself all up while doing it. You'll never here that reported in the paper though.
I like crazy stories and I have a talent of getting them out of people.
Sometimes people don't lead on just how miserable they are. Quite desperation as Thoreau called it.
I remember around 20 how sick I got, no external reason, just chemical imbalance. Lithium managed to reset my brain, or act like a band aid until my brain matured more. Mental illness is a touchy subject and more complex then other medical categories. Having a brain that doesn't work right is one of the worst things you can have with a heart or other major organ about to fail a 2nd. If your brain doesn't work right or is crazy, your life and actions will reflect it and those around you will treat you as such.