Husband Kills Wife Then Turns Gun on Himself Three Days After Celebrating Daughter’s Fifth Birthday

Commiting suicide is one thing, but what runs through the mind of a man who decides to fatally shoot his wife for no just reason?

It is a question that will continue to confound us and one that we might never get the answer to.

Matthew Eberhardt who was forty-five at the time of his death shot his wife Kristin on the doorstep of their Northampton, Pennsylvania home this past Tuesday night.

Kristin Eberhardt had been in a relationship with Matthew for over eight years, with six of those years in holy matrimony as husband and wife.

The couple have two children together, a five-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son therefore the massacre came as a huge surprise.

Infact, more shocking was the fact that the gory event which took place on Tuesday night came a short five days after the pair had thrown a birthday party for their daughter who just turned five.

Police have been unable to determine the motive for Matthew Eberhardt’s killing and neither have his neighbours who were of the opinion that all was well and good with the family.

The couple had lived in their Northhapmton, Pennsylvania home for eight years and neighbors described Matthew as down-to-earth, humble and easy going while his wife Kristin has been described as very nice and cheerful.

Most people who knew the family personally described a happy and sociable family that had just thrown their daughter a birthday party over the weekend and were shocked by the murder-suicide.

Why then would the head of such a stable household kill his wife and then turn the murder weapon on himself?

That is the million dollar question which members of the police are still working feverishly to find an answer to.

A slight dig into Matthew’s background revealed that he operated an excavator for a construction company and there were no problems at work that would warrant an action as drastic and terrible as a murder-suicide.

His wife Kristin was  employed at Porzio Life Sciences LLC as a senior regulatory analyst at the time of her death and had been with her company for more than a decade.

A managing partner at Porzio Life Science LLC had this to say about Kristin Eberhardt,

‘She was a very dedicated, wonderful young woman. Our heart breaks for the family, but particularly for those two children’.

And the last public Facebook photo posted by Kristin on December 21 showed the couple together with the kids in front of their Christmas tree.

The family was certainly still enjoying the afterglow of Christmas and a New Year as their front lawn was also plastered with Christmas decorations such as an inflatable reindeer, which remained standing as of the morning after the shocking deaths.

Financial problems have also been ruled out as a motive for the killings as documents obtained from the court confirm that the family wasn’t facing any financial hardships.

The only teeny little silver lining in this heartbreaking phenomenon is that the kids who are now with relatives didn’t witness any of the killings.