ST. LOUIS (AP) – The St. Louis-area mother of two boys who police say were shot to death by their father before he killed himself says the tragedy happened after she told him she wanted a divorce.

St. Louis County police say 43-year-old Christopher Cadenbach took his own life Saturday after killing 5-year-old Ethan Cadenbach and 4-year-old Owen Cadenbach at a park. Christopher Cadenbach was being sought on a warrant for domestic abuse.

Elisa Sartorius-Cadenbach told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch she recently told her husband of nine years that she wanted a divorce. She says “that was one of the things that set him off,” and that he abused her twice in the previous nine days.

Sartorius-Cadenbach believes her husband killed the children “to hurt me the best way he knew how.”