FAMILY HORROR
Husband shockingly insists mom who shot four daughters ‘isn’t a monster’ in haunting similarity to Lindsay Clancy case
He opened up about her struggles after giving birth to her two youngest daughters
THE husband of a mom who executed three of her children and seriously injured a fourth before shooting herself in the head has now come to her defense.
Tranyelle Harshman, 32, died after killing her girls on Monday, and her husband, Cliff Harshman, gave an emotional plea for understanding, saying she was "not a monster."
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"This is so out of character. It's unbelievable what had happened," he told while weeping.
"We'd been getting her help, and along the way, something didn't work.
"My wife was not a monster."
Tranyelle, 32, called 911 to report that her four daughters had been shot in their home in the town of Byron, Wyoming, about 75 miles east of Yellowstone National Park.
The mom told the dispatcher exactly where to find the girls' bodies before abruptly hanging up and turning the gun on herself.
The dispatcher tried to keep her on the phone, but Tranyelle told them it was "too late."
When Big Horn County Sheriff's Office deputies arrived, they found her oldest daughter, Brailey, 9, and two younger girls, who are 2 and 3, had been killed.
Tranyelle and her 7-year-old daughter Olivia were initially taken to a hospital in Billings, Montana, alive.
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Olivia was subsequently flown to Salt Lake City, Utah, where she is being treated for traumatic brain injuries.
Tranyelle died in Billings on Tuesday afternoon.
Big Horn County Sheriff's Deputy Keri Angell, one of the first to enter the house, broke down in tears as she described witnessing the horrific sight.
"Seventeen years at the sheriff's office and working crime scenes, and you don't ever expect something like this," she told Great Falls CBS affiliate .
HUSBAND'S HORROR
Cliff was Tranyelle's second husband, and they shared her two youngest children together.
Her oldest two were from a previous marriage to Quinn Blackmer, who has since remarried and had another young daughter.
Blackmer said he's "optimistic" that his daughter will recover but is closely monitoring her brain swelling.
"I need the world praying for my baby," he told .
"I need her to pull through. I don't have my [older] daughter anymore and this is all I have left."
Blackmer said he's been fighting for full custody of his daughters for the past four years, which created a tense relationship with Cliff and Tranyelle.
"I did worry that something bad would happen in the future," he said.
"But I had no idea - I could never imagine this."
After her death, Cliff opened up about her mental health struggles and revealed that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and post-partum depression.
He said the family was trying to get her help when she did the unthinkable.
"Most people don't understand how that affects the brain. It's a chemical imbalance," he told Cowboy State Daily.
"And it can be exacerbated by trying to fix it with medication."
Cliff said that Tranyelle and the girls were home from school on Monday because they had the flu.
He was in Southern California for work when he got the news but flew back fast enough to tell Tranyelle goodbye.
Cliff is living in a hotel while he prays for Tranyelle's daughter's recovery and sorts through funeral arrangements.
He said he feels angry with Tranyelle but is still mourning her loss.
"As angry as I may be with her, I still love her - and I still lost her as well," he said.
The U.S. Sun reached out to the Big Horn County Sheriff's Office, and they confirmed they are still actively investigating the murder-suicide.
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DISTURBING LINK
Tranyelle's killings come just over two years after Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mom, allegedly killed her three children under eerily similar circumstances and shined a national spotlight on struggles with post-partum depression.
Prosecutors believe she strangled little Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 7-month-old baby Callan with exercise bands before throwing herself from her home's second-floor window.
She survived and was discovered by her husband, Patrick Clancy, but is now paralyzed from the waist down.
A defense attorney for Clancy cited "mental illness" and a cocktail of prescriptions that he argues exacerbated her symptoms as the cause behind the horrific crime.
Patrick also admitted that his wife was struggling mentally and revealed that he had forgiven her in a bombshell interview in October.
"I wasn't married to a monster - I was married to someone who got sick," he told .
Clancy is facing three counts each of murder, and her trial is scheduled to begin in January 2026.
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On Wednesday, Plymouth Superior Court Judge William F. Sullivan ruled that Patrick's recorded interviews with The New Yorker could be submitted as evidence because he was a crime scene witness.
Correspondence with Pat's parents, sister, and friends will also be submitted to the court.
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