The mother blamed for killing her two teenage children before taking her own life in Florida earlier this week was suffering from depression after a series of close family deaths, a cousin has told the Palm Beach Post.

“I don’t think she would have done any of this if her mother was still alive,” the unnamed cousin reportedly said of Jennifer Berman’s Monday morning murder-suicide. Berman had also recently lost her grandmother and father.

On top of that, she had recently undergone a nasty divorce and was set to lose her home only a few months later.

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According to the cousin, Berman had threatened suicide in the past, though her threats were never taken seriously.

Just before the horrific murder-suicide, Berman sent emails to her ex-husband Richard Berman and other family members saying that she was planning to harm her children and herself. By the time Richard Berman had reached the home, his two children and their mother were already dead.

“She was crying out for help for so many years and I feel she was neglected,” the cousin reportedly said. “The kids didn’t have to lose their lives and Jennifer didn’t have to either.”

A funeral will be held for the children, aged 15 and 16, on Sunday. Richard Berman, a luxury Realtor, is asking that donations be made out to the school that the children attended.

“If we can help get any children get the dreams Alex and Jackie had, then this has some value, then at least there’s some good that could come from this,” Berman’s spokesman JJ Kaufman told the Palm Beach Post.

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