Police believe that former soldier Gawain Rushane Wilson, 28, walked into his home in Florida on Friday and shot his girlfriend Megan Hiatt, 22, their twin babies Hayden and Kayden, and Hiatt's father Travis, 49.
He then shot and killed himself.
Speaking to First Coast News, Megan’s mother, Melissa, said that she thinks five bullets struck her daughter as she held her 5-month-old daughters in her arms.
She said: ”He wanted to destroy her world. He wanted her to watch it be destroyed," she recalled.
Recalling what her daughter told her after the incident, Melissa added: ”’Mama, he killed them. He killed them in my arms. He made me hold them when he killed them. He made me watch.'
“I knew, I didn't ... I couldn't imagine someone doing that, holding your own children while someone kills them.”
Megan lost part of her breast in the shooting; currently in critical condition at UF Jacksonville Hospital, she is the only survivor of the tragic incident.
Melissa went on to tell the news site that Wilson had allegedly been abusive towards her daughter for months — he reportedly grabbed her on numerous occasions, called her fat after she'd just given birth to twins, often broke things in the house when he was angry, and would take her phone away.
But Megan told her mother, she wanted to keep the family together.
"She felt like her girls deserved a family, and too many people give up," Melissa told First Coast News.
A Go Fund Me page has been set up for Megan and her family; you can make a donation here.