Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

A man shot a woman and two children to death and then killed himself Wednesday in a home outside Atlanta, authorities said.

A fifth person was shot and was in critical condition, said Maj. Rick Doyle of the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office. The two children were under 10 years old.

“There’s no reason that any of us are ever going to understand to wipe out an entire family,” he told reporters. “We have absolutely no clue at this moment what precipitated it.”

In a post on Facebook, the sheriff’s office described it as an “apparent murder-suicide” and said there were no other suspects.