Family: Grandma in murder-suicide bipolar

PRESTON, Conn. (AP/WPRI) -- A relative of two young boys killed in an apparent murder-suicide says their grandmother insisted on picking the children up alone -- though their mother had objected.

Connecticut State Police say that after getting the children from a daycare center on Tuesday the grandmother, Debra Denison, 47, apparently shot and killed them before turning the gun on herself.

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Paternal great-grandmother, Marcia White, said the boys' mother, Brenda Perry, asked Denison to bring along another relative when picking up the children. White said Perry feared the boys were too much for Denison - who'd been diagnosed with bipolar disorder - to handle.

White said Denison wanted to pick up 2-year-old Alton Perry and 6-month-old Ashton Perry from daycare because it was Alton's birthday.

Timeline from daycare pickup to discovery

State police spokesman Lt. J Paul Vance said earlier in the day Denison had permission to pick the boys up from their daycare. She'd been armed, he said, when she left her home in Stonington Tuesday afternoon to go get them.

The police issued a region-wide Amber Alert Tuesday evening for the boys and their grandmother. Their three bodies were found in a parked car in Preston later in the night.

The chief medical examiner's office will be performing autopsies.