“Each of the deceased family members appears to have suffered gunshot wounds and were pronounced dead at the scene,” Formella said. “At this time, detectives are investigating this event as a potential murder/suicide.”
Senior Assistant Attorney General Benjamin J. Agati said investigators were working to determine the sequence of events inside the home. Autopsies are scheduled for Wednesday and will determine the manners of death for each family member, he said.
“After that is known, we will hopefully be in a better position to confirm whether this was a murder-suicide, and the person (criminally) responsible for the deaths,” Agati said by email.
Ryan Long was a school psychologist at Oyster River Middle School in Durham and an adjunct professor at Plymouth State University, according to his LinkedIn profile and published reports. The Oyster River Cooperative School District superintendent’s office referred all questions to the attorney general’s office office.
A younger cousin of Ryan Long’s said she visited the family in May and recalled how the kids rode their bikes and electric cars around the neighborhood.
“They really were a beautiful family,” she said. “We’re all just in shock over everything.” She asked not to be named to protect her privacy.
She said Parker loved hockey and lacrosse, and Ryan was “incredibly smart” and had a bright personality “from the beginning.”
“They were really happy kids,” she said.
Ryan and Emily Long were “both really great parents and just really great people,” she added.
“I can’t even fathom,” she said. “They both just loved the kids so much.”
The surviving toddler is “just the sweetest boy,” she said. “He’s very gentle, and he was always so good at sharing with his siblings.”
Earlier this summer, Emily Long posted a series of photos of the family vacationing on Cape Cod, the cousin said. From the outside, “it looked like they were having a blast.”
“Her Instagram caption was very positive about trying to fit as many memories as possible into the summer,” she said. “It seemed like she was really super mom to me.”
She said she idolized Ryan Long growing up, recalling him as “always willing to lend a hand and the most fun to be around.”
The extended family learned only a few months ago that he had been diagnosed with a “very aggressive form of brain cancer,” the cousin said.
“He’s always been an incredibly strong person,” she said. His children knew that he was receiving treatment — at Massachusetts General Hospital — and the family seemed to have a great deal of support, she said.
“This is why we’re just all so in shock. We have a lot of family, a lot of friends, that would do anything for them because, you know, they would do it, too.” Relatives will be coming together in New Hampshire to grieve, the cousin said.
“They were really just the best,” she said.
Durham’s town administrator, Todd Selig, said the town is “deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life at a home in Madbury involving members of one family.”
“Our hearts go out to all those impacted by this terrible event, especially the families, friends, and neighbors within our broader Oyster River Cooperative School District community,” Selig said in a statement.
Madbury is a small town about 15 miles northwest of Portsmouth and a few miles from the University of New Hampshire campus in Durham.
A 911 call was placed from the Moharimet Drive home around 8:20 p.m. Monday, officials said.
“The caller reported that several people were deceased. Upon arrival, troopers found the 911 callers and made entry into the home,” authorities said. “Troopers found the bodies of four family members: two adults and two children. A third child, a toddler, was alive and suffered no physical injuries.”
According to dispatch recordings, firefighters were sent to the home, along with regional ambulance crews.
“There’s [a] report of multiple bodies believed to be deceased, lots of blood on the floor,” a dispatcher told firefighters. “There was a pistol located.”
Firefighters and EMTs launched a major response of ambulances, but when they arrived they were told emergency medical aid was no longer needed.
“Just spoke to [State Police],” a firefighter told a dispatcher. “We just need one ambulance crew to confirm four deceased.”
And then: “You can clear all mutual aid.”
Authorities could not immediately say Tuesday whether there was a history of domestic violence at the home.
During the police response to the home on Monday, a dispatcher said records show police were called there last September for a “juvenile matter.”
Police in Madbury declined to provide information on previous calls from the home, citing the ongoing investigation. A spokesperson for Formella said he had no information about past interactions with emergency responders.
Agati said investigators were seeking information about any past police interactions or calls to come to the home but that he didn’t “know of any thus far.” He said there were no active restraining orders involving the family.
A gun was recovered at the scene and investigators are working to determine if it was the weapon used in the shooting, Agati said. He said he could not share what kind of gun was recovered or where it was found.
Madbury’s town administrator, Eric Fiegenbaum, said town officials are waiting for more information “to have a better understanding” of what happened inside the home.
“Certainly, this is a shock to the neighbors and residents of the town, and we are deeply saddened by the circumstances and loss,” Feigenbaum said in an email.
A profile of Ryan Long in the Oyster River High School magazine in 2017 said he moved to Hollywood after graduating from UNH with a degree in communications and worked in marketing for Sony Pictures before returning to New Hampshire in 2004.
He also returned to UNH, earning a master’s in mental health counseling in 2007. In 2015, he received a doctorate of psychology degree from the University of Southern Maine, according to his LinkedIn and a university spokesperson.
He took a job as a school psychologist in the Shaker Regional School District in Belmont, N.H., in 2009 and joined Moharimet Elementary School in Madbury in 2016, according to the school magazine. The article said he moved to Oyster River High School the following year.
“Working in a school, for me, is like a dream come true,” he told the school magazine.
Ryan Long was also working as an adjunct faculty at Plymouth State University, according to his LinkedIn and a university spokesperson.
Emily Long worked for Wing-Itz, a chicken wing restaurant with three locations in New Hampshire’s Seacoast region, where she was listed on the restaurant’s website as the director of operations. She studied hospitality management at UNH, according to a university spokesperson.
Wing-Itz owner Derek Fisher declined to comment Tuesday, citing the pending investigation.
Mark W. Saunders, 55, who lives on the opposite side of the street, said the children at that house recently had a lemonade stand.
Saunders described the neighborhood, where he has lived for 21 years, as “almost bucolic.” The street makes a large loop and each house sits on a generous lot with tall trees. An influx of younger families in recent years means there are often children outside playing.
“Kids play up in the field at the top of the street,” he said. “They ride their bikes around the loop.”
Saunders said he didn’t know the family who lived in the house very well, adding they were part of the wave of younger families moving in, he said.
The news of their deaths came as a shock, he said.
“It’s just so close,” he said. “I’m rattled.”
Saunders said he got home around 8:30 p.m. Monday and didn’t know anything was amiss until he received a phone call from a family member who had heard about the incident.
He came outside and found his street shut down by police vehicles with flashing lights.
While speaking with his neighbors, he saw a woman whose children apparently knew the children in the home.
He saw her begin to shake as she realized what had happened.
“Just watching that … I was sick to my stomach,” he said. “I think I still am.”
Jeremiah Manion of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
John R. Ellement can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @JREbosglobe. Steven Porter can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @reporterporter. Shannon Larson can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @shannonlarson98. Nick Stoico can be reached at [email protected].