A man hell-bent on murdering his wife and three children — and killing himself — coldly packed his family into an SUV and steered it into an Arizona lake!
And the entire terrifying sequence was captured on video!
“It just breaks your heart,” said Lieutenant Mike Pooley of the Tempe, Ariz., police. “It’s completely horrific what happened.”
Seconds before plunging his family into the Tempe Town Lake just after midnight on Oct. 18, Glenn Baxter, 27, was caught on surveillance video from a nearby condominium complex walking toward the shore and calmly scanning the waters.
But Baxter, who had recently separated from wife Danica, 25, was not admiring nature. He was plotting the most unnatural act possible.
Moments later, Baxter can be seen coolly starting his wife’s Nissan Armada and gunning it toward a watery grave for his entire family!
With Danica and their three young kids — Reighn, 3, Nazyiah, 2, and Zariyah, 1 — helplessly strapped into their seats, the SUV launched off an embankment at the shore, went airborne and flipped into the water — which was 6 to 7 feet deep.
Three cops and witnesses at the scene dove into the lake in a frantic bid to save the drowning family. The would-be rescuers managed to pull Baxter, Danica, Nazyiah and Zariyah out of the car and rush them to a hospital — but they were pronounced DOA.
Reighn’s tiny, pajama-clad body was pulled from the lake the following morning.
The unthinkable crime left friends shocked.
“I’m just so devastated,” said neighbor Monika Lynn Nathan, who said Danica was divorcing Baxter.
The couple had been battling for custody of the children, with Danica insisting Baxter only see the kids if he took anger-management classes.
Monika said she had urged Danica to get a protection order against her hot-tempered husband. A cellphone cops found near the water supported those claims.
“She was texting his mother, saying, ‘Your son is upset,’” said Lt. Pooley.
He added that a gun had been recovered from the car, but it was not known if Baxter had forced Danica to take that final, gruesome death ride. If he didn’t, then why didn’t Danica flee when her deranged husband was strolling by the shore?
“We have asked that question ourselves about a hundred times,” Lt. Pooley said. “We don’t know.’’
