Husband says he begged God to forgive his wife after she killed her four children and herself

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The husband of a Wyoming woman who fatally shot her four children and then herself earlier this month said he begged God to forgive her as she lay dying in an intensive care unit.

Cliff Harshman, the husband of Tranyelle Harshman, told the Cowboy State Daily that he was by his wife’s side at a hospital in Billings, Montana, when she took her final breath, just 12 hours after the gruesome events of Feb. 10.

“I sat and wept. And I cried to God: ‘Please forgive her. Help me forgive her,’” he recalled. “I lost my best friend. My kids. Everything.”

The grieving husband and father previously told the publication that his 32-year-old wife had been undergoing treatment for postpartum depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at the time of the tragedy.

He described Tranyelle Harshman as a loving partner and mother and “not a monster” despite what she did.

After an ICU nurse let him know his wife wasn’t going to make it, Cliff Harshman, who was in Southern California working for a natural gas company when the shooting happened, took his wife’s hand in his as doctors made preparations for her heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and spleen to be donated.

According to a press release from the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Office, a woman, later identified as Tranyelle Harshman, phoned 911 around 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 10 to report that gunshots had been fired inside her Byron, Wyoming, home.

Tranyelle Harshman told police her four daughters, ages 2-9, had been shot and she planned to “do the same” to herself.

When law enforcement officers rushed to the scene, they found two of the girls, a 2-year-old and 9-year-old, later identified as Brooke and Brailey, dead from gunshot wounds.

The other two girls were alive but critically injured. Jordan, who was also 2, died at the scene soon after authorities arrived, according to the press release. The remaining child, 7-year-old Olivia, was taken to the hospital, where she died on Feb. 15 with her biological father, Quinn Blackmer, by her side.

Cliff Harshman, who was the biological father of the two younger girls, told the Cowboy State Daily that he and Tranyelle Harshman knew each other when they were students at Powell High School, but the pair wasn’t close.

They began dating when Tranyelle Harshman and her ex-husband were going through a divorce in 2020, and they married that July.

Cliff Harshman told the publication he was trying to recount the events of the past five years to understand how his late wife became so troubled.

She suffered a miscarriage in 2021, he said. The following year, the couple welcomed their first child, Brooke, together. Tranyelle Harshman began struggling with postpartum depression after Brooke was born.

Brooke also had severe food allergies and wouldn’t nurse, which seemed to compound his wife’s depression, he said.

Within weeks, Tranyelle Harshman was pregnant again with the couple’s younger daughter, Jordan.

Her postpartum depression continued, said her husband, noting that she also began feeling overstimulated and claustrophobic while nursing baby Jordan.

She was also struggling with PTSD caused by a past event in her life, he noted.

On top of that, the family was enduring financial hardship as well as a custody battle with Blackmer, Cliff Harshman told the publication.

Though his wife had been undergoing treatment for her fragile mental state for several years, she hadn’t been able to move past it, he said.

After being home with his family for most of this winter, Cliff Harshman reported to Southern California for work on Feb. 7.

“I was like… yeah — go back to providing, to feel successful for my family again,” he said. “But it was at the wrong time. I needed to be home.”

Several days before he left, he and his wife held each other in bed and hoped for a brighter future, he recalled. But by the time he walked out the door, the mood between the pair was tense.

“I live with an immense amount of guilt for things that weren’t said the night before,” Cliff Harshman told the Cowboy State Daily. “I could have told her how much I loved her… could have told her how much she meant to me.”

He added that he hoped readers will be “compassionate” and understand just what a “nightmare” postpartum depression can be when they hear his family’s tragic story.

He also wished that doctors would warn would-be parents about the dangers of postpartum depression long before their babies are born.

As for himself, Cliff Harshman says he can’t help but grieve the family he loved and lost.

“What I wouldn’t have given to walk into that house and see them,” he said. “I’d give away everything that I have — and I have so much now — just to have it back to normal.”