Sheri Shermeyer posted a long suicide note on Facebook and then killed her child. (File)
Sheri Shermeyer's last message to the world was that of an angry, lonely and desperate woman.
She was angry at her husband, a man she described as a drunk with empty promises: "You will never see your son again. You don't deserve to have a son, to have a legacy. Why should you have your name carried on? You are a nasty man."
She was lonely that her life isn't what she hoped it would be: "I'm tired of being told the grass is greener somewhere else, tired of crying, tired of being threatened with divorce, tired of being physically ignored, tired of being emotionally abused, tired of not being able to eat or sleep, tired of the stress, tired of the headaches, tired of it all."
And she was desperate, so much so that she talked about ending it all: "And even now, all I can think about is leaving this world. Putting a gun in my mouth and leaving. Which is what is going to happen."
The lengthy message was posted to Shermeyer's Facebook wall at 10:52 a.m. on Monday.
She and her 1-year-old son, John, were found dead about two hours later in a home in a small Pennsylvania borough.
Pennsylvania State Police arrived at the house in Shrewsbury Township in rural York County at about 1 p.m., according to a news release.
Police believe the 40-year-old mother, who was found in bed with a gunshot wound to the head, had suffocated her son before killing herself. Coroner Pam Gray told the York Daily Record that Shermeyer's husband was not home at that time.
A Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson, who confirmed that the Facebook post was written under Shermeyer's name, said a friend of hers saw it and called police.
York County public records show that Shermeyer, formerly Sheri Ann Griffin, married Tracy Alan Shermeyer, 56, in 2014. Records also show that she lived in North Carolina before moving to Pennsylvania.
It's unclear at this time if there had been other warning signs before the Facebook post. Efforts to reach Tracy Shermeyer were unsuccessful.
But his wife's seven-paragraph Facebook post provides a glimpse into the couple's brief marriage - at least from Sheri Shermeyer's perspective.
She wrote that she had been acting as a single parent, that she had been mistreated, and that the last days of her life were spent in misery.
"I have been slowly dying inside. I'm confused, just torn down, hardly ever go out in public anymore, don't socialize with people, I've become a hermit," she wrote.
Much of the public post was addressed to her husband. The "loving" and "caring" man she once knew became "hateful, ugly and downright mean," she wrote.
"I thought that love would be enough, but it's not. Love of [sic] not enough, not for you. You are not capable of having someone. You insist on destroying everything good. You talk about how you're the whipping post, think again. Look how I get treated," she wrote. "It's easy for you to lash out at me because I'm here and that is what you do, all the time. You don't think you get ugly, but you do."
Toward the end, she warned of what will happen.
"Goodbye, good riddance, wish I never wasted these past years with you. Hope I don't see you in Hell," she said.
". . .just hate it had to end this way. Enjoy your miserable life. Thanks for saying goodbye when you left this morning."
Many of the 3,000 Facebook users who commented expressed thoughts of sadness and sympathy. Some said they know exactly what Sheri Shermeyer was feeling.
"Wow I can feel her pain. Its [sic] so sad that her only protection for her child was to take him with her to keep him from what she endured," one person wrote.
Others are skeptical and questioned why she would kill her own son.
"She did this out of spite and anger for this man. Her anger for this man weighed more to her than the love for her baby. Sickening," another wrote.
An investigation is continuing.
According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the suicide rates for women across most racial and ethnic groups has increased from 1999 to 2014.
The murder-suicide case involving Shermeyer and her son appears to be a rarity.
A study by the Violence Policy Center found that majority of murder-suicide cases, about 90 percent, involve male perpetrators who killed their female partners.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
She was angry at her husband, a man she described as a drunk with empty promises: "You will never see your son again. You don't deserve to have a son, to have a legacy. Why should you have your name carried on? You are a nasty man."
She was lonely that her life isn't what she hoped it would be: "I'm tired of being told the grass is greener somewhere else, tired of crying, tired of being threatened with divorce, tired of being physically ignored, tired of being emotionally abused, tired of not being able to eat or sleep, tired of the stress, tired of the headaches, tired of it all."
And she was desperate, so much so that she talked about ending it all: "And even now, all I can think about is leaving this world. Putting a gun in my mouth and leaving. Which is what is going to happen."
The lengthy message was posted to Shermeyer's Facebook wall at 10:52 a.m. on Monday.
She and her 1-year-old son, John, were found dead about two hours later in a home in a small Pennsylvania borough.
Pennsylvania State Police arrived at the house in Shrewsbury Township in rural York County at about 1 p.m., according to a news release.
Police believe the 40-year-old mother, who was found in bed with a gunshot wound to the head, had suffocated her son before killing herself. Coroner Pam Gray told the York Daily Record that Shermeyer's husband was not home at that time.
A Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson, who confirmed that the Facebook post was written under Shermeyer's name, said a friend of hers saw it and called police.
York County public records show that Shermeyer, formerly Sheri Ann Griffin, married Tracy Alan Shermeyer, 56, in 2014. Records also show that she lived in North Carolina before moving to Pennsylvania.
It's unclear at this time if there had been other warning signs before the Facebook post. Efforts to reach Tracy Shermeyer were unsuccessful.
But his wife's seven-paragraph Facebook post provides a glimpse into the couple's brief marriage - at least from Sheri Shermeyer's perspective.
She wrote that she had been acting as a single parent, that she had been mistreated, and that the last days of her life were spent in misery.
"I have been slowly dying inside. I'm confused, just torn down, hardly ever go out in public anymore, don't socialize with people, I've become a hermit," she wrote.
Much of the public post was addressed to her husband. The "loving" and "caring" man she once knew became "hateful, ugly and downright mean," she wrote.
"I thought that love would be enough, but it's not. Love of [sic] not enough, not for you. You are not capable of having someone. You insist on destroying everything good. You talk about how you're the whipping post, think again. Look how I get treated," she wrote. "It's easy for you to lash out at me because I'm here and that is what you do, all the time. You don't think you get ugly, but you do."
Toward the end, she warned of what will happen.
"Goodbye, good riddance, wish I never wasted these past years with you. Hope I don't see you in Hell," she said.
". . .just hate it had to end this way. Enjoy your miserable life. Thanks for saying goodbye when you left this morning."
Many of the 3,000 Facebook users who commented expressed thoughts of sadness and sympathy. Some said they know exactly what Sheri Shermeyer was feeling.
"Wow I can feel her pain. Its [sic] so sad that her only protection for her child was to take him with her to keep him from what she endured," one person wrote.
Others are skeptical and questioned why she would kill her own son.
"She did this out of spite and anger for this man. Her anger for this man weighed more to her than the love for her baby. Sickening," another wrote.
An investigation is continuing.
According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the suicide rates for women across most racial and ethnic groups has increased from 1999 to 2014.
The murder-suicide case involving Shermeyer and her son appears to be a rarity.
A study by the Violence Policy Center found that majority of murder-suicide cases, about 90 percent, involve male perpetrators who killed their female partners.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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