Inset: Charity Beallis (Facebook). Background: The home in Bonanza, Arkansas, where Beallis and her two children were found shot to death (KFSM).
Authorities in Arkansas are investigating the shooting deaths of a woman and her two children in her home as a divorce from her husband was being finalized.
The Sebastian County Sheriff's Office said in a press release that it conducted a welfare check around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday at a home in the 1100 block of 1st Avenue in Bonanza, a tiny town which sits along the state's border with Oklahoma. Cops arrived at the residence but no one answered when they knocked on the door.
Two people who worked at the home let them inside where they found 40-year-old Charity Beallis along with her two children.
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"It was apparent that the three had gunshot wounds," cops said.
Autopsies will be conducted to determine the official causes of deaths for the three victims.
"Search warrants have been written and executed with more search warrants anticipated during the investigation. Interviews have taken place with more anticipated. Information is still being gathered," deputies wrote.
Cops did not identify the two kids who both were about 6 years old.
While no arrests have been made, local media outlets report that Beallis and her husband were in the midst of a divorce. She and her husband, a local doctor, had just attended a court hearing two days before she and her two children were found dead. On Wednesday — the same day she and her kids were found dead — her husband's lawyer filed a motion to dismiss the case.
Local CBS affiliate KFSM obtained court documents that said Beallis' husband was arrested in February for choking his wife in front of their children. He pleaded guilty to third-degree battery in October and received a one-year suspended sentence and was ordered to pay over $1,500 in fines.
Charity Beallis filed for divorce in March and used the incident as a reason for her to have sole custody of her kids. It's unclear if she received that as part of the divorce settlement.
In August, she posted the following comment to an unrelated KFSM news story on Facebook, according to the TV station.
I'm living this battle right now. I am the victim, yet I've been treated like the problem while the criminal — a local doctor — is being shielded by the very system that's supposed to protect us.
I've tried to reach Prosecuting Attorney Daniel Shue, but he won't even accept a letter from me. My voice, as the victim, has been shut out.
This is not just about me — this is about a system that protects offenders and rejects victims. Lives are at stake, including the lives of young children.
Charity Beallis' father said he believes her husband is responsible for her death.
"There's nobody else in the world that had any reason to harm her or those babies but him," said Randy Powell. "And that was only for the financial gain and the hatred he had."
