Wife and mother Emily Long fatally shot her husband and two of their three young children at her $600,000 residence in Madbury, New Hampshire on Monday, before taking her own life.

Now the Daily Mail can disclose that Long, 34, faced significant challenges: her husband, 48, had a terminal brain cancer diagnosis and was confined to bed, and she was dissatisfied with her job.

A family friend tells us that Long had just left her job helping run a small chicken wings chain because she was dissatisfied with it. 

‘Ryan was bedridden, from what I gather he was undergoing chemotherapy. He was just weak and sick’, the friend said.

‘Emily had been relatively open about battling severe depression and finding it difficult to explain to the kids that they were going to lose their father.

‘She had also departed from her job but was discontent with her career, and they were clearly experiencing financial difficulties and were at risk of losing the house. Emily had a network of friends around her who knew what she was experiencing and even so were still shocked and caught off guard.’

Long killed eight-year-old son Parker and six-year-old daughter Ryan, each with a single bullet, around 5:30am Monday.

Ryan was then blasted multiple times by Long, before she turned her handgun on herself.

Their toddler son James, three, survived unharmed and was found wandering around the home by cops who arrived at the address around 8:30am.  

It remains a mystery why Long let James survive. The friend said: ‘I don’t know why she spared him. I can’t make sense of it.’ 

James is now being cared for by Long’s parents, according to the friend.  

Assistant Attorney General Ben Agati mentioned that investigators are examining the context of the shooting, and that financial issues and the impending loss of her husband had likely weighed heavily on her mind.

He said: ‘I think the big thing is to not speculate one reason why something like this would happen.

‘Homicide and suicide are usually far more complex than just one reason. We are still gathering more information to pinpoint different aspects.’

Long had been open about her fears surrounding losing her husband, regularly posting to her TikTok account about their journey. 

In the family’s final days, Long discussed their rapidly deteriorating situation on her TikTok, admitting she ‘knew that [she] needed to’ seek therapy.

‘I feel very, very lonely. I feel so anxious… I know that I need to see a therapist, I know that I need to ask for help… but I’m not ready to acknowledge that, I think,’ she confessed in a video shared just two weeks ago.

‘I feel so guilty that I’m not ready to get help yet, but… it is what it is, right? I know that I will one day, and I hope that I make the decision before I feel that it’s too late.’ 

Long said in the same video that she could ‘feel [herself] withering away’ with the knowledge that ‘this isn’t going away, this is only going to get worse’.

And as her husband’s condition worsened, Long opened up about the realization that she could one day become a single parent to three traumatized children. 

‘I’m doing all the bedtimes and by the time I’m saying goodnight to my third kid it hits me that this is going to be every single night at some point for the rest of my life,’ she said. 

‘When I’m doing all three bedtimes alone, I shut the door to the final kid and I’m totally by myself and I have no one to talk about my day with.’

Long said that, despite trying to remain positive, she also had to ‘plan to be a widow, and plan to support [her] family on one income and to be a single parent of three kids and juggle all the things that come with that.

‘I’m mourning my husband, I’m mourning my marriage and it’s still there. It’s very confusing and it’s very overwhelming.’

In her last video, shared just two days before their deaths, Long explained that she and her children were struggling with her husband’s diagnosis, but that she was committed to improving her mental health. 

‘All I want to do is hide under a blanket with my kids, but that isn’t healthy for them and it’s not healthy for me,’ she said.

‘Today I decided I need to make a conscious effort to shift my mindset. I’m getting out of this depression whether I want to or not. I am determined to create normalcy.’

Ryan Long was a psychologist at Oyster River Middle School in Durham, while Emily Long had last worked as director of operations at restaurant chain Wing-itz.