Court records offer details on murder suicide

The day before a man killed his son and himself, the mother of their children asked for a domestic violence protective order to keep him away from her and their children.

The request for the protective order was filed Oct. 20 by Racheal Lucretia Blakney against 48-year-old Russell William Blakney.

Blakney, who lived on Brentwood Lane in the Stanley area, shot and killed his 11-year-old son, Cyrus, in the early morning hours of Oct. 21, and burned the house down with Cyrus' twin, Piper, inside. Blakney also shot and killed himself.

Racheal Blakney wrote in her request for a protective order that on Oct. 19, two days before, Blakney and she argued, and during the argument he held her down by the neck and held a gun to her head and her throat.

"I tried to talk him down for the next 30 minutes where he had the gun laying next to us on the bed," she wrote. "He said, 'Why does it always come to this for you to listen?'"

Racheal Blakney added that Russell Blakney had three pistols, a shotgun and a rifle.

The seven-day protective order was granted by a district court judge, and Blakney was ordered to surrender his guns to the Gaston County Sheriff's Office.

Blakney also faced criminal charges related to the Oct. 19 incident. He was charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, false imprisonment and assault by pointing a gun.

When the Gaston County Sheriff's Office attempted to serve the protective order, they also tried to serve an involuntary commitment order and the arrest warrants, but their attempts were unsuccessful. A press release from the Gastonia Police Department said that negotiators made contact with Blakney to try to get him to surrender, and extensive negotiations continued throughout the evening into the morning hours of Oct. 21.

At approximately 3:37 a.m., the house ignited into flames, the press release said.

While Blakney burned down his home, his daughter survived the fire.

She was hospitalized at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center for smoke inhalation, according to a Go Fund Me page.

An obituary for Cyrus described him as "a wonderful, bright, and charismatic young boy... Although his time with us was short, he brought joy with his goofy sense of humor, bright smile and caring nature, leaving an everlasting impact on the hearts of those he encountered," the obituary said.

The Gaston County Police Department filed a request last week asking a judge to seal the 911 calls in the case, but District Attorney Travis Page told Judge David Phillips on Monday that police simply sought an extra two weeks to interview the final witnesses in the case, and that after those interviews are completed, police will release the calls.

This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Court records offer details on murder suicide