Instead of opening presents on his second birthday, an adorable Connecticut boy and his baby brother were driven to a remote area by their grandma — where she shot them in cold blood before killing herself.
The bodies of 47-year-old Debra Denison, Alton Perry, 2, and 6-month-old Ashton Perry, were found in a white 2002 Chrysler minivan Tuesday night near a boat launch at the Lake of Isles boat golf course.
Denison, who had bipolar disorder and a long history of mental health illness, according to her family, left a suicide note at a separate location, but the contents were not disclosed. Police said a 38-caliber revolver was found in the vehicle.
The grandmother had been given permission to pick up the boys from day care in the afternoon to allow their mom, Brenda Perry, to decorate the house for her son’s birthday.
“God (has) two beautiful angels helping him now,” grieving mom Brenda Perry wrote on her Facebook page yesterday, just hours after their little bodies were found at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday.
“My boys are in an amazing place we got a few great angels watching over us. love you Ashton and Alton.”
A day earlier, she had posted, “So excited making mini cupcakes and play dough for Altons day tomorrow can’t believe 2 years old already. So blessed”
Christine Hare, owner of Kidds & Co. day care, told The Post, “We were going over the ‘what-ifs’ but there was never a moment when anyone thought anything like this would happen.”
She said Perry had dropped off the two boys Tuesday morning with a tray of cupcakes for all the kids.
She tearfully said birthday boy Alton, “was the one, when anyone came into the classroom, he would trot right up to you and stand there and smile.
“I asked him how old he was and he tried to do the two fingers but he just smiled and held up all his fingers. He was proud it was his birthday.”
She put their grandmother on the permission list for a 2:20 p.m. pickup, and nobody could predict the demons were swirling in Denison’s head.
Nikki Salaun, the day center’s director, said, “I wish she had come in ranting and raving so we could have seen this problem and taken steps to stop it, but there was nothing to go on. It was just a typical pickup of a two-year-old boy on his birthday.
She described Ashton was “the chunkiest baby. He was just starting get up on his own, Brenda called his arms and legs sausage links. He was so happy, they both were.”
Hare added, “Brenda said she wanted to come over here today and get some of their art work, clothes, little memorabilia, you know the things they’ve done.
“We never got the sense she [Denison] was dangerous. She was bubbly and loving towards her grand kids. They lit up when she would come in to pick them up and they didn’t seem afraid of her at all.”
But Findley Allen, who had a brief relationship with Denison said she made his life a living hell and accused him of rape that she later recanted in order to stop him from seeing their young son.
“Every life she touched she ruined and destroyed. How could she have done this to her own daughter.
“She was just a bad person and she’s dead now and I have to deal with the family that is close to me,” he said of parents Brenda and Jeremy Perry.
Allen said that in 2010 their son Christopher, 25, was sentenced to 32 years in prisona stabbing murder in Mystic, Conn, in a robbery gone bad.
Allen referring to the children’s massacre in December. said of Denison, “The idea that she had gone to the day care center packing a gun was terrifying. It could have been another Newton.”