Investigators believe a Carroll County father shot his two kids to death and then turned the gun on himself.

“I can't get my head around it," said neighbor Todd Wright. "I just don't understand how someone could kill their babies. I don't care how deep in despair you are, and whatever is going on and how bad.”

Carroll County deputies found the boy and girl dead inside the home on Willow Lane in the town of Temple. They were dead from apparent gunshot wounds.

“We concluded this was a murder suicide,” Chief Deputy Brad Robinson of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office told News/Talk WSB.

Deputies went to check on the father when he hadn’t shown up for work at his job at the Home Depot in Carrollton for a couple of days.

“That was unusual for him,” Robinson said.

Robinson said the children had not been to school for a couple of days either.

Friends said the little girl attended Temple Elementary School and her big brother attended Temple Middle School.

"He was really smart he was all in gifted classes he was in Junior Beta, he played football," said classmate Alexis Dodd told Channel 2 Action News.

The mother had been out of town for about two weeks, which was about the same time deputies were last called to the house.

“They had been separated,” said Robinson. “We do know that she was out of state at this time.”

Robinson said he wouldn’t get much into deputies’ previous encounter with the family. But he did say the report was “titled a simple assault.”

Authorities say a chaplain did speak with the mother over the phone. Grief counselors are expected to be on hand at the children’s school Friday as well.

Investigators don’t have a motive yet for the killings. The victims’ names have not been released.