MacKenzie Elmer

melmer@dmreg.com

A Des Moines man called 911 and said he shot his wife and child, then waited for police on the living room floor, a police report shows.

Police got a call at about 7 p.m. Nov. 22 about an "unknown problem" at the Barney Fraaken's little brick home in the busy 4200 block of Hull Avenue, according to a police report. But as they neared, police dispatchers sent alert tones over the police radio, signaling to law enforcement that they were headed toward a shooting.

"Dispatch told us that the male caller was saying something about his mouth and that he shot his wife and son," the report states.

Something may have become lost in translation, because officers would eventually find two female victims — Fraaken's wife, Amy, 42, and their 16-year-old daughter, Amber — and Fraaken, sitting on the living room floor with a gun at his feet.

A police sergeant was the first through the door, the report states. He spotted a female victim lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs.

Fraaken, 47, had a gunshot wound to his mouth, the report states. His weapon, a Springfield XD handgun, rested at his feet, the police report shows.

Another officer entered the living room and grabbed the gun. Medics arrived and went to check on the woman on the staircase, but she was dead.

The sergeant searched the rest of the house, calling to his partner that there was another woman dead in a bedroom.

That's when Fraaken "said that he did it."

Fraaken would affirm twice more to police that he'd shot the bedroom victim and once to medics that he'd shot the stair victim as well, according to the report.

Medics told police later that on the way to the hospital, Fraaken "kept saying that he shot them."

Fraaken spent more than 100 days in the hospital recovering. He was arrested Wednesday and charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the shooting death of his wife and daughter.

He's at the Polk County Jail on a $2 million bond. His first hearing has not yet been scheduled.