Police Believe Son Killed His Mother, Then Himself : Newport Deaths Apparently a Murder-Suicide

Newport Beach police, piecing together evidence at an Eastbluff town house where the bodies of a mother, son and family dog were found, said Monday it appears that the son killed his mother and the family dog, then committed suicide.

Officers said the 34-year-old son had recently lost his job and was undergoing treatment for depression.

Preliminary autopsy findings indicate that Harriet Barding McMullin, 63, died from one or more blows to the back of the head from a 12-pound rock found inside the town house, police spokesman Kent Stoddard said.

Her son, John Hartford McMullin, 34, at first believed to have bled to death after slashing his wrists, apparently died instead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Stoddard said. Although a short-barreled revolver was found near his body, the bullet’s entry wound was not visible and was not discovered until the autopsy, Stoddard said.

The family’s small dog was found dead--its throat cut.

‘A Real Loner’

The McMullins lived together in the town house in the 2000 block of Barranca. Neighbors described her as “a very lovely woman; she wouldn’t speak poorly to anyone” and him as “a weird guy, a real loner.”

Their bodies were discovered Sunday morning by a neighbor who noticed a window broken next to the front door.

The broken window and signs of disarray inside the house at first suggested the possibility of an intruder.

Stoddard said Monday, however, that it appears the man, perhaps after a struggle, hit his mother in the back of the head with a large rock, and she fell dead near the front door. The rock was found inside, he said. If the mother had struggled, that could account for the broken window, he said.

The dog, a year-old Shih Tzu named Amen that neighbors said was bought by the mother to keep her company, was found dead on a bed. Face down beside the dog was the son, whose wrists had been slashed, Stoddard said.

‘A Lovely Person’

Neighbors Monday expressed disbelief after discovering that the deaths were the results of an apparent murder-suicide.

“It was a real shock,” said Bill Greene, who lives across the street. “She was such a lovely person.”

“Something just snapped in John’s head, I guess,” Greene said. “Harriet wasn’t the kind of person who’d harass him about anything.”

Maggi Davidson, another neighbor, was shocked. “I knew John had been out of work. I thought he might be a little despondent, but I didn’t think it would come to this,” she said. “They seemed fond of one another and they both loved the dog.”

Janet Bryant, who lived several doors down the street, described Harriet McMullin as a lovely, beautiful woman. Bryant said that she thought it was a murder-suicide when she first found out about the incident and that she didn’t sleep all night.

“I turned on the TV and the radio--anything to keep my mind off of it,” she said.

‘Always Smiling’

Bryant said she used to talk to the mother while she was walking her dog.

“She was always happy and always smiling,” Bryant said. “She was such a vivacious person--I wish I had known her better.”

“I’m sitting here today thinking I’ll never see her walk by with her dog again, except in my mind,” Bryant said as she sat on her balcony.

Diane Young, another neighbor, said: “You just never think anybody would be so disturbed and depressed that they would kill their mother.”

Young said she previously had thought that there was “something peculiar” about the mother’s and son’s relationship, but did not know the son and only knew the mother casually.

“We were always going to go to lunch,” Young said of Harriet McMullin, “but we never did quite make it.”