St. Louis Mom Who Killed Husband, Baby and Dog in Murder-Suicide Had Postpartum Depression: Family

Mary, Matthew and Taylor Rose Trokey were buried Wednesday

The St. Louis mother believed to have fatally shot her husband and infant daughter before turning the gun on herself in a double-murder suicide suffered from postpartum depression, according to multiple reports.

On Friday, Mary Jo Trokey and her husband, Matthew, were found fatally shot along with their 3-month-old daughter, Taylor Rose, in their St. Louis home. While authorities have not formally identified the shooter or revealed a motive, local outlets are reporting that the new mother shot and killed her husband, baby and family dog while suffering from postpartum depression, KMOV reports.

At a funeral Wednesday, the family was remembered at Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque church.

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Matt Trokey/Facebook

The couple were originally from the St. Louis area, a relative who asked not to be identified told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They became engaged in the fall of 2013 and married months later, according to the paper. Both received their bachelor degrees from the University of Missouri, where Mary Jo also earned a masters in social work.

Rev. Bob Reiker of St. Raphael the Archangel Parish, which the couple attended for nearly two years, previously told PEOPLE he baptized the couple’s daughter last month.

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St. Raphael the Archangel Parish

Reiker tells PEOPLE that Mary Jo worked for two years with the church’s St. Vincent de Paul Society, which worked with low-income people in the neighborhood.

“It’s hard to imagine what happened,” said Reiker, who christened the couple’s daughter. “People are baffled by it. It’s inexplicable how someone could do this to themselves, let alone their little girl.”

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In an interview with local station KMOV, Kim Martino-Sexton, a postpartum resource coordinator in the SSM Health system, said one in seven mothers experience postpartum depression.

“They often have trouble sleeping, they cry a lot, they feel overwhelmed, they don’t feel like themselves, they’re sometimes very protective of their baby or they sometimes don’t feel like they’re connecting with their baby,” Martino-Sexton told the station.

Martino-Sexton urges anyone experiencing symptoms of postpartum depression to call MOMS Line at 314-768-MOMS.

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