Mark and Megan Short and their three children, Willow, Liana, and Mark. (Facebook/Megan Short)
A family of five found dead in an apparent murder suicide in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania includes a toddler who survived a heart transplant as an infant.
The local District Attorney, John T. Adams, identified the deceased parents as Mark and Megan Short, according to The Reading Eagle. Also killed were the Shorts’ young children, Liana, Mark and Willow, Adams said, according to the local newspaper. All died of gunshot wounds, the newspaper said; authorities had not yet released which person they think pulled the trigger.
Mark Short with his three children. (Facebook/Mark Short)
Although the children’s ages were not given out, Willow, who had a heart transplant, was 2-years-old based on previous news stories that discussed her recovery and struggle to get prescription drugs. In April, Mark Short wrote of Willow on Facebook: “They get big so quick. My littlest one will be 2 in two weeks.”
Megan Short wrote frequently about having a child with a heart transplant and vividly described her own struggles with PTSD. Willow survived the transplant for two years, only to be shot in her own family home.
The family was found dead inside their home in a subdivision called Brookfield Manor. Sinking Spring is a borough of just over 4,000 people located in Berks County, Pennsylvania.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Willow Short Had a Heart Transplant As an Infant Two Years Ago & Her Mother Wrote About Having PTSD
According to The Reading Eagle, the newspaper ran a story in 2014 on Willow Short, who had undergone a heart transplant at 1-week-old. The story said the baby was “thriving” and started, “Few parents would call listening to a baby’s cries one of the blessings of child rearing.”
Megan Short wrote on The Waiting List: “Willow’s first wail was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard, but it didn’t take long before she was intubated within hours of her birth and I could no longer hear her voice.”
Megan Short with her three children. (Facebook/Megan Short)
Megan described her own emotional pain, writing, “It was so difficult to see her upset. But not be able to hear her cry, it was heartbreaking. After her transplant, doctors were able to remove the breathing tube. Hearing her voice and seeing her face without all the tape is one of my favorite memories.”
Megan Short wrote frequently on the Waiting List Facebook page about her child and family.
In May, Megan Short wrote, “Willow was diagnosed with complex congenital heart defects prenatally. She was expected to be stillborn, but she came out fighting! At only six days old, she received her gift of life! We think of the tiny donor and his/her family every single day. We are so grateful that they said yes to organ donation during their darkest of days.”
Megan also wrote about what she described as “My latest Blog post. Sharing my experience in hopes that it helps someone. PTSD in parents of chronically ill children is not discussed or studied as much as it should be.”
In the blog post, she said, “There are very few moments when you can clearly see your life as separated into the before and after. Having a child born with a severe congenital heart defect has been the most significant shift of my life. Like many moms, I have always put my family’s needs ahead of my own and forgotten to make time to take care of myself. Having a child with a life-threatening illness intensified that. I was so focused on learning everything I could to keep my child alive and to minimize the impact on my other children that I didn’t see the full impact that it had on me.”
Willow Short. (Facebook/Megan Short)
She described having anxiety, nightmares, and triggering events, and noted, “I don’t think PTSD ever truly goes away but, with therapy, medication, and the right support, I have begun to loosen its grip on me. As I work on my own mental healing, I wanted to share my experience so that other heart parents know they are not alone.”
When Megan Short shared the blog post on Facebook, a relative responded, “Amazing piece Megan!!! You are an inspiration to so many❤️hugs.”
PHOTOS: Mark & Megan Short With Children
Mark and Megan Short and children, Willow, Liana, and Mark died in a murder suicide in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania. Willow, 2, had a heart transplant. See photos.
2. The Family Struggled To Get Prescription Drugs For Willow, Which Was Featured in The New York Times
The Short children, Willow, Liana, and Mark. (Facebook/Megan Short)
The family was also featured in the New York Times in 2015 in a story that talked about the family’s struggle to get anti-rejection medication for Willow, said The Reading Eagle.
The New York Times story started out, “As the end of each month nears, Megan Short frets.” It talks about how Willow needed drugs so her body wouldn’t reject her transplanted heart and details her mother’s struggles making sure she could refill the drugs.
The story focused on the concept of a “specialty pharmacy,” which the Times called “a new breed of drug dispensary that has risen to handle the exploding number of medicines that cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.”
The story includes a photo of Megan Short holding her baby as well as a picture of the Short family releasing balloons on the first anniversary of Willow’s heart transplant.
Mark Short holding Willow shortly after she received her heart transplant when she was just one week old. (Facebook)
In her blog posts, Megan also described in great detail the difficulties of protecting a child with a heart transplant, saying, “We would use a plastic rain cover over the car seat to prevent germs” and “The weight of not knowing if she will ever live a day outside of the hospital is very heavy.”
In May 2015, she wrote, “We found out about Willow’s heart defects at our routine ultrasound right before Christmas. That was an especially difficult holiday season for me as I could not help but think that I may never get to celebrate my baby’s first Christmas. Spending this past Christmas at home with my husband and all three kids was one of the best days of my life. It was also very emotional because I just kept thinking that the donor family was experiencing the one thing I had been so afraid of: they were spending the holidays without their baby.”
3. Mark Called Megan The ‘Most Beautiful Girl That I’ve Ever Met’
Megan and Mark Short. (Facebook/Megan Short)
On Facebook, both Mark and Megan Short repeatedly posted photos of their family, especially their children. “Happy family” one relative wrote under a photo. The Reading Eagle newspaper received similar accounts from neighbors, who said they didn’t notice anything amiss.
In December 2015, Mark wrote of Megan: “She’s still the most beautiful girl that I’ve ever met. I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have her as my wife and the mother of my three amazing children!”
Megan Short with her children. (Facebook/Megan Short)
According to The Washington Times, the Short family’s bodies were discovered at 3 p.m. on Saturday Aug. 6 inside their home.
4. The Deaths Are an ‘Apparent Murder Suicide,’ Reports Say & The Five-Year-Old Son Loved ‘Rough Housing’ & ‘Monster Games’
The deaths were being called an “apparent murder suicide,” and authorities said that all of those who died were members of the same family, said ABC 6 Philadelphia.
A relative wrote of the son, Mark, in July on Facebook, “Today, this little guy turns 5…I can’t get enough of his smiles, loving, rough-housing and monster games (for some reason, though, I am always the monster).”
Some family photos show the children at Disney World.
The murder suicide happened on Saturday afternoon, CBS Philly 3 said. Police have not yet released who committed the murders, how or why.
5. Megan Said She Related to ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Posted a Meme About Being in a ‘Dark Place’ & Read Books About Murder
Liana celebrates a birthday in 2009. (Facebook/Mark Short)
“Never stop smiling! You have such a beautiful smile Megan!” a friend wrote on Megan’s Facebook page in late July. When a friend wrote to ask Megan if she wanted to go see the movie Alice in Wonderland, she wrote back: “Yes. I connect with Alice. With wonderland.”
However, on June 1, she posted a meme that read, “Sometimes when you’re in a dark place, you think you’ve been buried, but actually you’ve been planted.” Another meme she posted in 2015 said, “Just remember that sometimes the way you think about a person isn’t the way they actually are.”
Megan Short. (Facebook/Megan Short)
In May, she posted that she was reading the book Worth Dying For by Rita Herron. The book jacket says, “One man wants to kill her the other will die to protect her. Just when the residents of Slaughter Creek think they’re safe, a sadistic serial killer strikes.”
Megan also wrote that she was reading another book by the same author called Her Dying Breath. That book’s jacket says: “Journalist Brenda Banks is on the verge of the biggest story of her career—if she can stay alive long enough to finish it. A serial killer is targeting men in the small town of Slaughter Creek.”
She also recently read Harlan Coben’s Fool Me Once, described as, “Former special ops pilot Maya, home from the war, sees an unthinkable image captured by her nanny cam while she is at work: her two-year-old daughter playing with Maya’s husband, Joe—who was brutally murdered two weeks earlier.”
Megan wrote on Facebook of that book, “Finished in a day. Couldn’t put it down. Very well written.”
The family lived in a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath home worth over $400,000, according to online home records. Police obtained a warrant to enter the home after 8 p.m. on Saturday to continue the investigation, The Reading Eagle said.
Jessica McBride is a Heavy contributor. She was a crime, government, and breaking news reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and reporter for the Waukesha Freeman newspaper. Her award-winning work has appeared in numerous magazine, newspaper, and online publications. She has also appeared as a crime reporter on Investigation Discovery Channel, History Channel, and Oxygen Channel. She can be reached by email at jessica.mcbride@heavy.com.August 7, 2016 2:55 am
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