Tonya Thomas Shot & Killed Her 4 children, Joel Johnson 12, Jazlin Johnson 13, Jaxs Johnson 15, and Pebbles Johnson 17, Before Turning The Gun On Herself. Tonya Thomas Reportedly Sent A Text To A Friend Saying She Wanted To Be Cremated With Her Children

11:50 AM, May. 15, 2012

PORT ST. JOHN, Fla. — A mother killed her four children Tuesday morning, calling three of them back into her home to fatally shoot them before turning a gun on herself, according to investigators here.

Joel Johnson, 12; Jazlin Johnson, 13; Jaxs Johnson, 15; and Pebbles Johnson, 17, died. Their mother, Tonya Thomas, 33, reportedly sent a text to a friend saying she wanted to be cremated with her children, said Tod Goodyear of the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, which is leading the investigation.

The deaths are worst instance of multiple homicides in Brevard County since the April 1987. In that instance, William Cruse killed six people, including two Palm Bay, Fla., police officers during a shooting spree.

Sheriff’s deputies and the SWAT team responded to the home in this modest, working class neighborhood just after a 5 a.m. call of shots fired. The body of one female was found in the front yard.

Goodyear said police saw someone in the house and decided to enter shortly after 7 a.m. That’s when they discovered the four additional bodies.

Goodyear said police had been to the house previously but would not elaborate.

Travis St. Peter, 27, who lived about three houses down from the family until two days ago, said the family was known in the neighborhood for being disruptive and said police were often at the house.

"They were just known for being hoodlums,” St. Peter said of the children. The mother was regularly yelling at the children, who were often running around the neighborhood late at night, "terrorizing our dogs and setting off firecrackers,” St. Peter said.

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Posted: May 15, 2012 11:52 AM CDT
Updated: May 15, 2012 11:54 AM CDT
By: Alice Wolke

PORT ST. JOHN, Florida -
A mother shot and killed her four children before turning the gun on herself early Tuesday morning, police in Florida said.

Brevard County Sheriff's deputies tell myfoxorlando.com that 33-year-old Tonya Thomas killed her 17-year-old daughter Pebbles Johnson, her 15-year-old son Jaxs Johnson, 13-year-old daughter Jazlin Johnson and 12-year-old son Joel Johnson.

The killings happened at the family's home in Port St. John, a coastal town about 45 miles east of Orlando.
Police said neighbors heard gunshots before dawn, then heard the knocking at the door. The neighbors opened the door to find three of the children begging for help, saying they had been shot.

But just then, Tonya Thomas shouted for the children to return home, which they did. The neighbor immediately called 911.

When police arrived, they found the 17-year-old bleeding from a gunshot in the home's front yard. The officers called for an ambulance, retrieved the team, then called for the SWAT team.

While police were setting up a perimeter, they heard more gunshots from inside the home. SWAT officers entered and found the three other children and their mother.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Thomas sent a text message to a friend in the middle of the night, asking to be cremated with her children. The friend did not see the message until he woke up, hours after the killings.

A few weeks ago, deputies had responded to a domestic disturbance at the home involving the mother and the 15-year-old son, Jaxs.
Lt. Tod Goodyear with the Brevard County Sheriff's Department would not speculate on a motive for the killings.

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She must have been under a lot of stress. But why kill her children?
joan+20

Oct 7, 2012 2 By NewsOne Staff

The mother who shot her four children and herself dead at her Port St. John, Fla., home on May 15 had two times the legal limit of alcohol in her system, Florida Today reports.

For reasons unknown to family and friends, Tonya Thomas, 33, used a Taurus .38-caliber revolver to fire shots into her children Joel Johnson, 12, Jazzlyn Johnson, 13, Jaxs Johnson, 15, and Pebbles Johnson, 17, before killing herself within a 35 minute period.

During that time, three of Thomas’ children ran to a neighbor’s house before the mother called them back home, according to police. Though, an autopsy report states that Pebbles likely passed out after returning.

Thomas was found dead on her couch from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The gun was still in her hand when cops found her.

Brevard County Medical Examiner Dr. Sajid Qaiser performed the five autopsies in the two days after the killings. The children appeared healthy and had no drugs in their blood, according to the reports. He found nothing unusual or out of the ordinary during the examinations, except for Thomas’ blood alcohol level.

Goldberger said he’d heard about the Port St. John shooting, but he was not involved in investigating the incident. Based on Thomas’ height and weight, he estimated she had many drinks before the shooting.

“At the time she died, she had approximately 10 drinks in her body,” he said. One drink is about 0.03 percent BAC in a 130- or 140-pound woman, he said. Autopsy reports say Thomas weighed 197 pounds, which Goldberger said would mean one drink equal to about 0.015 percent.

He said it’s not unusual for people who commit suicide or kill others and themselves to have drugs or alcohol in their system at the time.

“It’s not unusual that they consume alcohol and or drugs to cause an intoxicated state to reduce their normal inhibitions,” he said. “This way they can act out, and often times they act out irrationally.”
Brevard County Sheriff’s Lt. Tod Goodyear told Florida Today that no one will likely ever know why Thomas killed herself and her four children.

“Everyone understands the magnitude of it,” he said. “It’s a terrible thing when a mother takes all of her children’s lives.”

The case is officially closed.

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This is MOO but I think she had some underlying psychological problems and the alcohol exacerbated them. This reminds me of Toni Medrano; the woman who passed out w/her 3 week old child and suffocated him..then after seeing Nancy Grace discuss her case - link here -
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set herself on fire. Did both of these women have underlying emotional problems? I would say they most assuredly did.

A Florida woman who fatally shot her four children before killing herself in May was drunk at the time, according to autopsy reports. Tonya Thomas had a blood-alcohol level of 0.16 percent -- two times the legal limit, according to reports cited by floridatoday.com.

That's the equivalent of approximately 10 drinks for a woman her height and weight, Bruce Goldberger, a professor and the director of toxicology in the Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Florida College of Medicine, told floridatoday.com. Thomas, 33, of Port St. John, used a .38-caliber revolver to shoot Joel Johnson, 12, Jazzlyn Johnson, 13, Jaxs Johnson, 15, and Pebbles Johnson, 17, before killing herself at the family’s home early May 15, police said.

A total of 19 shots were fired and each child was struck multiple times. Though Thomas was impaired by alcohol at the time, police still don’t know why she killed her children. “We’re not going to know the answer to that question, because she’s deceased,” Brevard County Sheriff’s Lt. Tod Goodyear told floridatoday.com. “She’s the lone person responsible for the deaths.” With the results of the autopsy in, investigators will now close the case.

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In my half-baked opinion, the mother wanted to die and no one would ever love her children and take care of them the way she did. I think she was a narcissist and everything was about her and how she felt. She was a "good mother" and good mothers don't abandon their children. I also think she wanted to die because of a man who didn't return her feelings. Unstable women do that. Or maybe I'm projecting. My mother was a narcissist.