A FATHER apparently shot to death five of his children, aged seven to 16, at their mobile home and then killed himself near a Washington casino kilometres away.

Ed Troyer, a spokesperson for the sheriff, called it a domestic violence situation and a murder-suicide.

“We believe they all died of gunshot wounds,” Troyer said on Saturday.

Police found the father’s body early on Saturday in his still-running car near the Muckleshoot Casino in Auburn, about 48km south of Seattle. He had apparently killed himself with a rifle, although no note was left in the car, Auburn police sergeant Scott Near said.

Later in the day, deputies checked the mobile home, about 32km southeast of the casino, and found four of the children dead in their beds and the fifth in the bathroom.

Neighbours in the Deer Run mobile home park, a neat, well-kept community nestled among towering evergreens, were shocked and weeping at the news.

“How could something like this happen?” asked Mary Ripplinger, whose children were playmates of the slain children. “Everyone’s asking: ‘Why did he do it?’ ”

The mother of the victims was not at home, Troyer said. The deputies were called to the mobile home after a relative stopped and saw a child lying motionless on a bed through a window, and couldn’t get anyone to answer the door. He said investigators believe the husband and wife were not estranged.

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor described the crime as a “horrible thing”. “This was not a tragedy. It was a rotten murder,” Pastor said. “This appears to be the terrible work of the biological father. If that doesn’t break your heart, I don’t know what does.”

Authorities did not release the names of the family, but Troyer identified the dead children as four girls and a 7-year-old boy.

l In a separate incident, a man who police say killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at an immigrant community centre was depressed and angry over losing his job and about his poor English skills, officials said on Saturday.

The shootings took place in a neighbourhood of homes and small businesses in downtown Binghamton, a city of about 47000 situated 225km northwest of New York City.

Police Chief Joseph Zikuski told NBC television’s Today that people “degraded and disrespected” the gunman over his poor English.

Mayor Matthew Ryan, speaking on ABC’s Good Morning America, said the man, believed to be 42-year- old Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Voong, was angry about his language issues and his lack of employment.

On Friday, he barricaded the American Civic Association community centre’s back door with his car, walked in the front and started shooting with two handguns.

Within minutes, a receptionist, 12 immigrants taking a citizenship class and the gunman were dead. Another receptionist, who played dead after she was shot in the abdomen, called the emergency dispatcher to get police to the scene within two minutes.

“She’s a hero in her own right,” Zikuski said.

Four people were critically wounded in the Friday massacre, and 37 others made it out, including 26 who hid for hours in a basement boiler room while police tried to determine whether the gunman was still alive and whether he was holding any hostages, Zikuski said. — Sapa-AP