Crystal and her children; Jason Kenney mugshot

Crystal Kenney and her children, Jason Kenney.Credit : Jason Kenney/Facebook; Polk County Sheriff’s Office

 

A Florida girl is recovering after surviving an attack that claimed the life of her mother.

The 13-year-old is in critical but stable condition, alert and talking, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference.

He spoke with her prior to the press conference and she told him that she tried to stop her stepfather by begging him not to kill her.

“And he shot me anyway,” she told Judd.

She and her siblings are now orphans after their mother, Crystal Kenney, was murdered by her husband Jason Kenney, 47, who later took his own life just days before Christmas.

Jason Kenney and his wife Crystal

Jason and Crystal Kenney with Crystal’s two children.Jason Kenney/Facebook

Judd said that the 911 call came in just before midnight on Dec. 22.

Jason had been watching Monday Night Football in a shed behind the house, but returned to the house to watch the final minutes of the game. Crystal was inside and objected to Jason taking control of the television.

The two began to argue, and as things escalated, Crystal instructed her 12-year-old son to run next door and call 911.

“So the 12-year-old flees to the neighbor’s house in order to dial 911, and as he’s leaving the house, he hears a gunshot,” Judd said.

Deputies arrived on the scene within five minutes and entered the home to find Crystal had been fatally shot in the head. But she was not the only victim inside the home.

In one of the bedrooms, deputies found Crystal’s 13-year-old daughter had been shot twice – once in the shoulder and once in the face.

“We later learned the bullet in the face hit her on the bridge of the nose, went straight up, and out the top of her head,” Judd explained.

He then added: “That’s a Christmas miracle.”

Jason Kenney and his wife Crystal

Jason and Crystal Kenney.Jason Kenney/Facebook

  

The third child in the home, the infant daughter of Crystal and Jason, was unharmed.

Jason, meanwhile, had fled the scene before deputies arrived and gone to the home of his recently-deceased father, where he barricaded himself in a shed.

During that drive, Judd said that Jason contacted his sister and told her he had done “something very, very bad” and that “the next time you see me will be on the news.”

Deputies were able to track Jason down to his father’s property, but as they surrounded the shed a single gunshot was heard from inside, Judd said.

Jason was later pronounced dead at the scene.

All three children are now being cared for by their maternal grandparents.