Outside on the sidewalk at 1108 Celeste Street in Crowley, the morning paper still lay in its plastic sleeve.

It would go unread this day by its subscribers, who lay inside on their bedroom floor — each with a mortal gunshot wound to the head.

Police believe that Bill Price, 37, shot his wife, Cynthia "Cindy" Price, 35, then turned the gun on himself. Police describe the weapon as a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun. A fight over family finances and a birthday party were listed as the cause of the double tragedy.

No one woke the children of the house for school the next morning. They awakened on their own and couldn’t rouse their mother and stepfather from behind the locked door of the couple’s bedroom.

Cindy Price’s daughters, Jessica Hickey, 14, Stacey Hickey, 12, and Karyn Murphy, 10, told police that they heard their mother and stepfather arguing sometime around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday in the couple’s bedroom. The girls said they heard gunshots, then all was quiet, so they went back to sleep. The girls expressed to police that it never occurred to them that anyone had been shot.

The next morning when the Prices did not emerge from the bedroom, the children went outside, where the oldest girl looked through the window and saw enough to convince her to summon the police. Crowley dispatch received the plea for help at 7:38 a.m. Thursday under the call for a possible suicide.

When police arrived on the scene, they went to the Price’s bedroom and kicked in the door. Inside on the floor at one side of the bed lay Cindy Price, dead with a gunshot wound to the head. At the foot of the bed lay Bill Price with a self-induced gunshot wound to his head. The gun lay between them on the floor.

Crowley Lt. T.J. Sims confirmed that none of the girls saw the gruesome scene once police gained entry to the bedroom.

The girls were put inside a Crowley ambulance that had arrived on the scene, then eventually taken to police headquarters. Victim liaison Officer Sandra Goforth worked with the children, summoning their respective school counselors, principals and others at Deer Creek Elementary, H.F. Stevens Middle School, and CHS Ninth Grade Campus.

School officials bought the children breakfast and brought them activities to do while Goforth notified the next of kin. The Hickey girls’ father was summoned from Austin, while Karyn Murphy’s father drove in from Wichita Falls.

About 11 p.m. Jay Murphy drove up to the house and informed the officer in charge of guarding the scene, Officer Brian O’Heren, that he was Karyn Murphy’s father. Officer O’Heren directed him to the police department, where he could find his daughter. ...