The small town of Madbury, New Hampshire, is still reeling from a horrific murder-suicide that left a father and two children dead.
Now, new details are shedding light on the chilling final days of Emily Long, the 34-year-old mother who, authorities say, took a handgun and killed her husband and two of their children before taking her own life.
On August 12, six days before the tragedy, Emily sent what would be her last message to her boss at the restaurant chain Wing-itz, where she worked as director of operations: “I’m sorry for everything.”
What Derek Fisher, her boss and friend, didn’t know was that Emily’s world, both personal and professional, was unraveling. Investigators later discovered she had stolen more than $660,000 from the business over two years, quietly writing checks in her name as the company struggled to make payroll.
“You wonder how someone you trusted so completely could be capable of something like this,” Fisher told The Daily Mail. “She had so many secrets.”
The tragic morning
On August 18, Emily Long shot and killed her husband Ryan Long, 48, and their children Parker, 8, and Ryan, 6, before turning the gun on herself. Only her youngest son, age 3, survived, authorities said.
Autopsy results later confirmed that Ryan died from multiple gunshot wounds, while both children were killed by single shots to the head. Emily’s death was ruled a suicide.
Police say the massacre unfolded in the early morning hours inside the family’s home in Madbury, New Hampshire, just six days after her last text message to Fisher.
The hidden life of a mother in crisis
Friends and colleagues knew Emily as a devoted wife and mom who had been caring for Ryan after his brain cancer diagnosis. Online, she chronicled her family’s struggles on TikTok, speaking about therapy and mental health.
“I hope I make the decision before I feel like it’s too late,” she said in one haunting video just days before the murders.
Behind the scenes, Fisher said Emily was juggling grief, guilt, and deception. As her husband’s condition worsened, she allegedly began embezzling money from Wing-itz, even while comforting her boss as he agonized over missing funds.
“I’d be in tears saying, ‘We’re making money — so where’s it all going?’” Fisher recalled. “She just brushed it off and said, ‘Don’t worry, things will get better.’”
A pattern of deception
Court records reveal that this wasn’t the first time Emily had been accused of financial wrongdoing. In 2016, she was charged with fraud after allegedly skimming $11,000 from a New Hampshire pub — a red flag that, Fisher says, no one knew about.
“Maybe this behavior had been going on for a long time,” he said. “I was just the grand finale.”
To those who knew her, Emily appeared to be a loving mother. She often brought her children to work, where Fisher said the children were always happy and that they clearly loved their mom.
But as the investigation unfolds, police and psychologists are piecing together a portrait of a woman crushed under layers of grief, financial ruin, and psychological strain.
