Michael Howie
LAKE STATION -- Neighbors remembered the young family found deceased inside their Lake Station home Friday night as generous, energetic and ever-present people in the tight-knit community now shattered by tragedy.
On Friday, authorities responded to a welfare check in the 6700 block of E. 9th Avenue, where they found all five members of the Payne family deceased. On Saturday, the Lake County Coroner's Office said four of them -- the mother, Briana, 27; and her young daughters, Alayna, 4; Ava, 6; and Aurorah, 7 -- all died of gunshot wounds by manner of homicide. The father, 37-year-old Robert Payne, died by suicide, the coroner's office said. It's presumed he shot and killed his family before taking his own life.
On Saturday afternoon, children -- 13- and 10-year-old boys and an 8-year-old girl -- were playing in the street just a block away from where the tragic deaths occurred. Their mother, who has lived in the neighborhood for approximately six years and asked not to be identified, said her kids were friends with Alayna, Ava and Aurorah. Her daughter was "best friends" with all of them, she said, and was in the same class at school as Aurorah.
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"She's not old enough to (understand what happened)," the mother said. "She kind of put it as her friends moved away. She doesn't realize how definitive it is."
The Payne children came over to play with her kids almost every single day, she said. When her daughter broke her leg last October, it was the Payne kids who brought treats over to make her feel better. Aurorah even volunteered to carry her backpack at school.
The three young girls were described by other neighbors as "happy all the time."
Jennifer Wisz, 50, only moved to the neighborhood a few weeks ago but still had fond memories of the young children.
"Every time I walk my dog, they come out with treats for my dog and they give them to her," Wisz said.
She said one day, the youngest daughter, 4-year-old Alayna, came running out of her house with a bag of Doritos as Wisz was walking her dog.
"Doggie, doggie!" Wisz remembers Alayna exclaiming as she ran toward the canine and held out the chips for her dog to snack on.
Briana, the mother, will be remembered by other neighbors as a helper in the community and a friend to everyone.
"If you needed a ride, she'd give you a ride," one neighbor said. "There was one time, I told her, 'My washer is broken right now.' And the next day, she got me a free freaking washer. And she did that for everybody."
Briana worked at Sandra Lees In-Home Care in Crown Point and was the primary caregiver for her mother, Lili Parker-Owens, according to an online fundraiser created by her employer on behalf of the family. The funds raised will go directly toward funeral and memorial costs.
"She brought so much kindness and dedication to her work... with warmth and a sense of selflessness that touched everyone around her," the online fundraiser says. "But nothing meant more to Briana than her girls. Aurorah, Ava, and Alayna were her heart and soul -- her reason for everything. She raised them with endless love, warmth and laughter, and a fierce devotion that defined her as a mother."
The loss of Briana will impact more than just the people in the community in which she lived. It will impact every part of the world in which Briana touched.
"Losing Briana and her daughters feels like losing a piece of our hearts," the Sandra Lee In-Home Care family wrote on the fundraiser's webpage. "There's an emptiness now in our community where their light and energy used to be. It's hard to imagine moving forward without them."
Alayna, Ava and Aurorah's grandmother, Parker-Owens, called Aurorah "Twinkle -- the twinkle in my eye."
Parker-Owens said Ava smelled like chocolate as a baby, earning her the nickname "Chocolate Drop," and said she called Alayna "Bubbles" because of her "bubbly personality."
One woman who lived near the Payne family said her young grandchildren played with the victims outside all the time. She's lived in the neighborhood for 16 years and remembers when the Payne family moved in down the block several years ago.
But now, she said, it's a close community with one giant hole in it.
"At this point, I'm just numb," she said.
GALLERY: The Times Photos of the Week Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Michael Howie
Public safety reporter
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