Grandmother Insisted on Picking Up Boys Alone: Family

A relative of two young boys killed in an apparently murder-suicide said their grandmother insisted on picking the children up alone despite the objections of their mother.

Debra Denison picked her grandsons, Ashton, 2, and 6-month-old Alton, up from a daycare center in North Stonington on Tuesday afternoon to bring them home for Ashton’s birthday, but apparently shot and killed them before turning the gun on herself, state police said.

Marcia White, the paternal great-grandmother of the slain boys, told the Associated Press that the boys' mother, Brenda Perry, had asked the grandmother to bring along another relative.

Denison's struggles with mental health were well known and Perry told Denison the boys were too much of a handful for her, White said.