KALAMAZOO, MI -- The 4-year-old boy shot and critically injured in an apparent murder-suicide in Kalamazoo has died.

Nicholas Jeffery Mitchell died Thursday evening, Nov. 9, at Bronson Methodist Hospital, Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety Assistant Chief Vernon Coakley said early Friday.

Nicholas had been taken to Bronson after a 6:40 a.m. shooting Thursday that police say was an apparent murder-suicide. Police say Nick Allen Mitchell Jr., 40, shot and killed the boy and the boy's mother, Julina Gale Gibson, 30, and then turned the gun on himself. The shooting happened in the front yard of Gibson's mother's house in the 100 block of East Emerson Street after Gibson and Mitchell argued.

Police would not say how the shooting transpired, but the boy's grandmother, who witnessed the shooting, said Mitchell, Gibson's ex-boyfriend, shot his son and Gibson before turning the gun on himself.

"He shot her, he shot the baby, he shot himself," said Linda Newkirk, Gibson's mother. "It was over visitations with the baby."

The couple was in a two-year custody battle over Nicholas that was documented in Kalamazoo County court records.

Gibson had sole physical custody of the boy, but Mitchell was granted parenting time. In October, a bench warrant was issued for Mitchell, who was behind on child support payments.

Newkirk said her daughter was a caring, strong-minded and strong willed person. She was working at Target in distribution, but her career was as a caretaker.

"She loved her children more than anything in the world," she said. Gibson leaves behind a 10-year-old daughter.

Newkirk said Thursday afternoon doctors were trying to save Nicholas, who had suffered brain damage in the shooting, but that it didn't "look promising."

"But he's going to be OK because he's going to be with his mom," Newkirk said.