ARANSAS PASS, Texas – A juvenile male who police say posted pictures of people he identified as his dead relatives and threatened a school in the Aransas Pass area killed himself Wednesday as officers approached the crime scene, police said.
By the end of a confrontation with officers, the body of the teen -- identified as 15-year-old William Quince Colburn III -- was found along with the bodies of three other people and two dogs.
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Murder/Suicide Investigation. Information is limited... https://police.aptx.gov/murder-suicide-investigation/
Posted by Aransas Pass Police Department on Thursday, September 16, 2021
The Aransas Pass Police Department said they tracked down the boy after he posted the graphic images on social media.
“Further, he threatened to continue violence at an area school,” police said in a news release.
Officers with APPD, Ingleside Police Department and San Patricio County Sheriff’s Office tracked him to an RV where he lived.
When they asked him to exit the RV, police said he refused. In a news release, police recalled that officers then “heard a single gunshot and a thud of a person falling to the ground.”
When officers made it into the RV, they “immediately discovered the graphic scene shared over social media,” the news release from police said.
Police said the boy died from a gunshot wound.
The murder-suicide is still under investigation and officials said there is no further threat to students or staff of Aransas Pass Independent School District or the Ingleside Independent School District.
San Patricio County Sheriff Oscar Rivera said the other three people also had been shot to death. He identified them as: William Colburn Jr., 63; Janna Colburn, 53; and Emma Colburn, 13.
Rivera said William Quince Colburn III and the three others found slain in the RV were related, but he did not yet know specifically how.
Police said that had it not been for the “speedy action” of the social media website and other teens within the group where the threat was made, “we might well have been working on an even more tragic event later this morning.”
“I’m glad that we were able to find him before something worse could have happened,” Rivera said.
Rivera said it was unclear what school the teen might have been threatening. He said the teen wasn’t registered at any local schools and authorities believe he was homeschooled.
“I’m not sure which school he planned to attack but he certainly had the weapons and ammunition to do so,” Rivera said.
He said the teen had at least two guns and a rifle.
This is a developing story. Stay with KPRC 2 for the latest information as it becomes available.