A Hopkins daycare that operated out of a family home became the scene of a devastating loss of life on Wednesday morning, leaving a small Minnesota city struggling to absorb what happened. Police say a man who co-owned the in-home childcare business with his wife killed her and their young daughter before ending his own life, while other children were present in the house.

Investigators believe a second death, discovered hours later in a nearby city, is directly connected to the same case.

What Officers Found

Police were called just after 9 a.m. local time after a parent arriving to drop off children at the basement entrance realized something was badly wrong and phoned for help. Officers arrived to find three people dead inside.

Hopkins Police Chief Brent Johnson described the scene as horrific.

According to the chief, a 41-year-old woman and a 7-year-old girl were found on the lower level of the home. The 41-year-old man believed responsible was found dead on an upper floor of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Names have not been made public while relatives are being notified.

Six Children Unharmed

Six other children were inside the home at the time. All of them were physically unharmed and have since been returned to their parents.

Johnson said the children were all very young. Investigators have not yet determined where each child was located within the house while events unfolded, or how much any of them may have seen or heard.

He called it a tragic day and said it was a devastating environment for small children to have been in, whether or not they witnessed anything directly.

For the families involved, that uncertainty will likely be one of the hardest parts of the days ahead. Counselors and support services are typically mobilized quickly in situations like this, and parents are generally encouraged to seek professional guidance rather than press young children for details.

A Second Scene in Burnsville

By midday Wednesday, police in Burnsville had located another death at a residence where the man is believed to have been living. The victim was a 78-year-old woman.

Burnsville Police Chief Matt Smith said she is believed to have been a close relative of the suspect. He told reporters that joint work between Burnsville officers and Hopkins investigators led them to conclude the two scenes are connected.

Authorities are still piecing together the sequence of events and the timeline linking the two locations.

Questions That Remain Open

Several key details have not been established publicly.

Police have not identified a motive, and that portion of the investigation is ongoing.

Johnson said it is not clear whether the man and his wife were separated, or how their living arrangements were structured. The fact that the suspect appears to have been residing at the Burnsville address suggests the household situation may have been complicated, but police have not confirmed anything further.

Investigators have also not detailed how long the daycare had been operating or how many families used it.

No Ongoing Threat to the Public

Police moved quickly to reassure residents that the danger had passed. Johnson said the case is believed to be an isolated domestic incident and that there is no outstanding threat to the community.

That distinction matters in a case like this. Random violence and violence within a family produce very different kinds of fear, and officials clearly wanted to prevent a wider panic while acknowledging the depth of what occurred.

A City of 20,000 Absorbs the News

Hopkins sits roughly ten miles west of Minneapolis and is home to around 20,000 people. Mayor Patrick Hanlon said the city is reeling.

He described Hopkins as a place where people genuinely know one another, saying there are effectively no strangers in the community. That closeness, usually a strength, makes an event like this land harder. Many residents will have some connection to the family, the daycare, or the families who used it.

Johnson made a similar point, noting that this is not the kind of crime the city sees. He added that the impact extends well beyond Hopkins, touching any parent who leaves a child in someone else’s care.

Why This Story Resonates So Widely

That last observation captures why the case has drawn attention far beyond Minnesota. In-home daycares are a common and often deeply trusted childcare option. They are frequently chosen precisely because they feel less institutional, smaller, more personal.

That trust is built on a simple assumption: that the home is safe. When something like this happens, it unsettles parents everywhere, even though such events are statistically rare.

Experts who study family violence generally emphasize a few points in the aftermath of cases like this:

Warning signs are often visible only in hindsight, and rarely to outsiders.

Domestic violence does not always look the way people expect, and it can exist in households that appear entirely ordinary from the outside.

Support for those close to the situation, including the parents of the other children, matters as much as the investigation itself.

None of that offers comfort to the people directly affected here. It does help explain why officials tend to speak carefully and avoid speculation while facts are still being gathered.

What Happens Next

The investigation remains active across two jurisdictions. Police in Hopkins and Burnsville are continuing to work together to establish the full timeline and determine what preceded the deaths.

Identities of the victims are expected to be released once notifications are complete.

For now, a small city west of Minneapolis is grieving three lives lost in one house and a fourth in another, with far more questions than answers.

This story involves suicide and family violence, which can be difficult to read about. If any part of it hits close to home for you personally, I’m happy to help you find appropriate support resources.