Minnesota man kills his wife and daughter at a daycare after killing another relative

HOPKINS, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota man killed his wife and their 7-year-old daughter as young children gathered at a home daycare the couple owned before taking his own life, police said Wednesday. Some time prior to the attack, police believe he also killed a 78-year-old relative at her home.

The 41-year-old man fatally shot himself after stabbing his wife and child at their in-home daycare in Hopkins, a suburb of Minneapolis, police said.

All six other children who were at Brown Bear Childcare were not physically harmed, authorities said. Another parent called police after witnessing the attack in the home's basement while dropping off a child, Hopkins Police Chief Brent Johnson said.

“There’s no worse scenario than this, where you drop off your child somewhere you think is safe, and you get that phone call,” Johnson said at a news conference.

“This is a tragic day and horrific scene for little children to witness, if they did witness this,” Johnson later added.

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More than three hours after the killings, Burnsville Chief Matt Smith said officers were called to a home in his community, 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Hopkins, where they found a woman who had been fatally stabbed. He said investigators believe the two tragedies are linked, and that the man had been living at the home of the “close family relative.”

No names were released. Johnson said no clear motive had been determined yet and there was no history of police calls to the Hopkins address.

Johnson said it will take time for authorities to determine the timeline between the killings in Hopkins and Burnsville.

Amanda Marx, a nurse who lives across the street, didn’t realize anything was wrong until she noticed police officers trying to break down the home’s front door.

She said officers moved behind the house before reappearing and calling for crime scene tape. Later, several young children emerged — one being carried by an officer.

The brown, two-story house has a mural on the garage door of a tree-lined lake and a moose. Photos on the daycare’s Facebook page show kids playing with toys inside and in the backyard, with colorful decorations and artwork on the walls.

Marx said she and her 7-year-old son always referred to it as the “garage house” due to the colorful mural. The longtime resident said she’d never met the home’s owners and was unaware they were running Brown Bear Childcare out of the home. She didn’t recall any prior disturbances.

“I’m just trying to figure out how to explain to my 7-year-old why there’s crime scene tape on our deck,” she said.

Records show the daycare has been licensed by the state since 2019 and has a capacity of 10 children. It was found to be in compliance during visits in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Johnson said killings are a “rarity” in Hopkins and that his officers were shaken by the scene they found inside the home.

“I could see on the look on their faces that this was one of those ones that you’ll remember for your entire career, if not life,” Johnson said.

Rico reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed.

Burnsville Police Chief Matt Smith, right, attends a news conference in Hopkins, Minn., Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, where police said a man who killed his wife and their 7-year-old daughter at an in-home daycare is also suspected of killing a 78-year-old female relative. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Hopkins Mayor Patrick Hanlon, flanked by Police Chief Brent Johnson, speaks at a news conference in Hopkins, Minn., Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, where police said a man who killed his wife and their 7-year-old daughter at an in-home daycare is also suspected of killing a 78-year-old female relative. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Law enforcement respond to a call at a home daycare, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, in Hopkins, Minn. (AP Photo/Carly Danek)

Law enforcement respond to a call at a home daycare, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, in Hopkins, Minn. (AP Photo/Carly Danek)

Law enforcement respond to a call at a home daycare, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, in Hopkins, Minn. (AP Photo/Carly Danek)

Law enforcement respond to a call at a home daycare, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, in Hopkins, Minn. (AP Photo/Carly Danek)

Law enforcement respond to a call at a home daycare, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, in Hopkins, Minn. (AP Photo/Carly Danek)

Law enforcement respond to a call at a home daycare, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, in Hopkins, Minn. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)

CAIRO (AP) — Rescuers in Yemen pulled more bodies from the rubble Wednesday of a prison run by Iran-backed Houthi rebels that was hit in a deadly airstrike earlier this week, as an escalation between the rebels and a Saudi-led coalition threatened Yemen's fragile ceasefire.

The renewed fighting is also threatening global oil shipments as the Houthis target shipping and oil infrastructure that’s helping keep oil flowing through the Red Sea while the U.S.-Iran war has throttled shipments through the key Strait of Hormuz on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula.

The prison in Hazm, the Jawf provincial capital, collapsed on Monday when coalition strikes hit the area, killing at least 23 people, including the four whose bodies were found on Wednesday.

It wasn't immediately known how many people were in the prison at the time of the strikes, which also left seven injured.

Following the strike on Monday, the Houthis retaliated on Tuesday with attacks on southern Saudi cities. The coalition early Wednesday responded with more airstrikes, targeting Houthi military facilities in Jawf and Marib provinces.

Hassan Saboula, director of Jawf's civil defense agency, said a child was among the 23 killed on Monday and that rescue teams were still searching for seven missing from the attack.

The identities of those killed have yet to be determined, al-Masirah satellite news channel cited Saboula as saying. Among the seven injured was a woman who was visiting her husband, said Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry.

In a statement Wednesday, Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the prison strike was carried out by an F15-SA Saudi aircraft. He said the aircraft took off from King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait, the kingdom's fifth-largest city, at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, hit the prison and returned to the base 15 minutes later.

The Saudi government didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The rebels said they targeted the base on Tuesday, as part of their strikes on several cities in southern Saudi Arabia.

Yemen plunged into civil war in 2014, when the Houthis descended from their northern stronghold and seized the capital, Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government to flee southward and then into exile in Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi-led coalition entered the Yemen war the following year in an attempt to restore the government. The war has killed at least 150,000 people, according to U.N. estimates, and at times pushed the country to the brink of famine.

The escalation between the rebels and the coalition started when the Houthis attempted in July to fly a plane from Tehran, Iran's capital, to Sanaa, the rebel-controlled Yemeni capital, challenging a decade-long air and naval blockade by the coalition. The coalition struck the runway in Sanaa, preventing the flight from landing.

The Houthis have since targeted Saudi Arabia and attacked Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. On Tuesday, they hit several Saudi oil facilities where some operations have since been temporarily suspended, according to the Saudi Energy Ministry.

Also, the rebels have been attacking Saudi-allied government forces on multiple fronts within Yemen. However, government forces turned the tide earlier this month, striking Houthi positions on the Red Sea, on Yemen’s western coast.

Before the Jawf prison strike, the violence in Yemen killed at least 194 people between Aug. 23 and Sept. 5, and wounded over 880, according to the World Health Organization. More than 21,000 people have been displaced.

The escalation shattered a four-year truce that had largely halted the fighting in the civil war.

People read a newspaper to follow the war news at a shop in Sanaa, Yemen, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

FILE - A Houthi Shiite rebel mans a machine gun mounted on a military truck in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, Oct. 20, 2014. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File)