Gun dealer’s wife shot dead with her twins, 8, in house
Neighbour reveals horror of killing scene
THE wife of a gun dealer was fatally wounded at her farmhouse while her twin sons were at home, a neighbour revealed yesterday.
Silke Hartshorne-Jones, 41, died in hospital after being shot in the early hours of Sunday.
Neighbour Kevin Terry, 53, realised the full horror when he saw Silke’s boys, aged eight, being driven away by police after the shooting.
Kevin, who caught the heartbreaking scene on CCTV, said: “There didn’t seem to be any movement or anyone coming and going before the police arrived.
“But it [CCTV] later showed police taking away the two boys in a car while an officer appeared to be restraining a man.
“You have to feel sorry for these two young boys who have lost their mother in the most awful circumstances.” Kevin added that police have taken away footage from his camera as potential evidence.
Officers were called to the 17th century Chestnut Farm in Barham near Ipswich, Suffolk, at 4.45am on Sunday.
German born Silke lived at the property with her gun dealer husband Peter and their sons.
Peter runs his own recruitment agency as well as the firm Hartshorne Fine English Shotguns.
Silke was found in a critical condition and rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead. She died just two weeks before the ninth birthdays of her identical twin sons. The £600,000 farmhouse remained cordoned off yesterday as forensics officers carried out searches.
Suffolk Police said last night that Peter Hartshorne-Jones, 51, has been charged with murder and will appear before Ipswich Magistrates’ Court today.
There didn’t seem to be movement before police arrived KEVIN TERRY NEIGHBOUR WHO SAW HORROR ON CCTV