On Thursday night, James Harrison learned that his wife was leaving him.

By 8 a.m. Saturday morning, Harrison was dead, having taken his own life after killing his five children in their Graham-area home.

According to Pierce County sheriff’s investigators and reports from friends of the family, Angela Harrison, 30, left home that Thursday night after a terrible argument with her husband, and she said she wasn’t coming back. She had found someone new, she told him.

On Friday, after he hadn’t heard from his wife, James Harrison and his 16-year-old daughter, Maxine, tracked her down using the GPS function on Angela’s cell phone. James loaded all five of their children into the car and confronted his wife at a convenience store in southeast Auburn.

Angela reportedly told her husband she was leaving him to be with her new boyfriend, the man who was with her at the store. The man reportedly works at the Indian Country Store on River Road in Puyallup where Angela Harrison also works.

Less than 15 hours later, Harrison, 34, shot and killed his children in their home. Later, he drove back to Auburn near where he confronted his wife the night before and shot himself, according to sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer.

Why Harrison went to Auburn on Saturday isn’t known, but Troyer said it’s reasonable to theorize that he went there looking for his wife in order to kill her.

When he couldn’t find her and “realized the gravity of what he had done, he shot himself,” Troyer speculated.

Family members and friends identified the parents and their children. In addition to Maxine, they were daughters Jamie, 14; Samantha, 12; and Heather, 9; and son James, 7. Authorities still wouldn’t officially identify the victims Sunday.

DAUGHTER FOUGHT FOR HER LIFE

At a news conference Sunday afternoon outside the Harrisons’ modular home in the Deer Run Mobile Home Park, Troyer said all five children were shot multiple times.

The type of firearm and its caliber were not disclosed.

Four of the children were found in their beds, he said. One of the older daughters was found in the bathroom, Troyer said. Based on the damage inside, that victim fought hard to defend herself against her 300-pound-plus father, Troyer said.

Family members, neighbors and friends came by the home Sunday and started a memorial garden of flowers, cards and stuffed animals.

Tina Neidigh, 32, and husband Eric McCoy, 37, were the last people to see the children alive Friday night.

They sat outside their Spanaway mobile home Sunday afternoon and tried to make sense of what happened to their best friends. They had known the Harrisons for nine years. They spent weekends barbecuing together and playing pool on Sundays. Their four children played with the Harrison kids.

They said both parents were caring, nice people, which makes what happened so much more difficult to understand.

Neidigh said James Harrison had called them about 6 p.m. Friday night and told them about the confrontation with his wife. He said he was upset and asked them to come over.

When they arrived, Neidigh said, “the kids were a mess. They all were bawling. I was pretty close to Maxine. She and I were talking and she said, ‘Tina, Mom wouldn’t even talk to me.’”

“We sat down and talked to the girls,” McCoy said. “We told them their mom loves them and sometimes adults do stupid things.”

NO SLEEP FOR A DAY AND A HALF

By the time they left at 10:30 p.m., they said, the kids were laughing and Harrison even cracked a smile or two. Harrison had tucked three of the children into bed.

Harrison, who worked as a security guard at Emerald Queen Casino for the past three months on the 2 to 10 a.m. graveyard shift, told his friends he hadn’t slept in a day and a half.

“On the way out the door, I told him to be good, take care of the kids and don’t worry about anything else,” McCoy said.

Neidigh said she gave Maxine a hug. “I told her things would get better,” she said. “I told her she was the oldest and would have to be stronger for the other kids.”

Neidigh said she tried to reach Angela Harrison by cell phone during the night, but no one answered.

The next morning, they called the Harrison house, but no one answered. McCoy said he went to the house and pounded on the door about 2:30 p.m but couldn’t get a response.

Troyer said that about 3:20 p.m. a neighbor looking in a window saw a leg sticking out from a bed. The relative called 911.

Neidigh said she did talk to Angela Harrison on Saturday afternoon before she found out about the deaths of her children.

“She said, ‘I’m fine. I just got tired of it, I left James,’” Neidigh recalled. “She said she had to leave James because she couldn’t take it anymore,” but didn’t say what her husband had done to alienate her.

Sheriff’s officials say they didn’t know where Angela Harrison was staying on Sunday.

CONFLICTING DESCRIPTIONS OF DAD

While Neidigh and McCoy said they wanted to speak publicly to dispel the notion that James had been a monster or abused his kids, others felt differently.

Candy Johnson, an aunt of Angela Harrison who also lives in the Deer Run Mobile Home Park, described James Harrison as a strict, controlling husband and father who didn’t allow his wife to make any decisions without first asking him.

“My niece has been so controlled from the time she was young,” Johnson said, adding that James Harrison had impregnated Angela when she was 13.

They lived “in a bubble” and had little contact with others, she said, though she acknowledged she didn’t know what went on in the house because she had little contact with them.

Troyer said James Harrison had one run-in with Child Protective Services. He agreed to take parenting classes after slapping one of his daughters. There were no other recorded contacts with CPS and no domestic violence calls to the house.

On Sunday, Nora Jangard remembered Angela Harrison. She had taught her in second grade. Jangard, who has been a teacher for 40 years, also taught Harrison’s daughter Samantha last year at Orting Middle School.

She recalled a parent-teacher conference last year with Angela Harrison and Samantha. Jangard said she told Angela Harrison it was impressive that she and her husband, who had married very young and had five children, were still together.

“Angela said, ‘Yep, it was forever,’” Jangard said.

Mike Archbold: 253-597-8692

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

What Happened

Thursday night: James Harrison learns that his wife, Angela, is leaving him for another man.

Late Friday afternoon: Maxine Harrison, 16, uses a cell phone GPS locator to help her father find her mother with the other man at an Auburn convenience store. The group gets into an argument.

6 p.m. Friday: James returns to the family’s home near Graham with the children. He calls friends to talk about what happened. They come over to calm the situation. They leave about 10:30 p.m.

Between 1 and 7 a.m. Saturday: James grabs at least one of his five weapons and opens fire on his children. Four are shot in their beds. One of the older daughters is shot in the bathroom after a struggle.

8 a.m. Saturday: James is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in a still-running SUV in an Auburn mobile home park.

2:30 p.m. Saturday: Tina Neidigh, one of the friends who visited Friday, goes to the Harrison home and pounds on the door. No one answers.

3:20 p.m. Saturday: Neighbor Ron Vorak calls 911 for a welfare check.

4 p.m. Saturday: Pierce County sheriff’s deputies arrive and discover the bodies of the five children.

Brian Everstine, The News Tribune