MLB

Wife and 1-year-old child of Blake Bivens, a minor league player in Tampa Rays player, identified as shooting victims by the police

According to the authorities, the brother in law for the Tamp Bay Rays Blake Bivens was arrested naked after a manhunt held in the tiny southern community of Virginia after killing the wife of the athlete, his 1-year-old toddler son and his mother-in-law.

The name of the shooter is Matthew Thomas Bernard who is 18 years old.  The police arrested him on Wednesday after they were informed of a gunman on the loose after they found bodies of the victims at a home located in Keeling on earlier Tuesday morning.




One of the victims was Bernard’s sister who was married to Blake Bivens, a pitcher at the minor league team Tampa Bay Rays as well as for Montgomery Biscuits of Alabama.

After the news of the shooting incident that left 3 of the family members’ dead, Biscuits canceled their schedule for the doubleheader on Tuesday.

Kevin Cash, the manager of Rays said,” All we can do right now is to put our arms around Bivens as a team and around his family and do the very best we can for him.”

Alabama’s Biscuits issued a statement of Twitter that states as follows,

“As the Biscuits and Rays families continue to grieve for the family of Blake Bivens, we want to thank our fans and baseball community for the support through the difficult period. We ask that you keep Blake in your heart and rally around his teammates and coaches as we return to the game of baseball on Thursday evening.”

Michael Taylor, Pittsylvania County Sheriff said that they are still trying to determine the motive for these killings.  Taylor identified the victims as one 62 years old Joan Bernard, mother of Bernard, 25-year-old Emily Bivens, sister of Bernard and 14-month-old Cullen Bivens, nephew of Bernard.

After Bernard was captured in a long manhunt, he banged his head on the cage of the police car and then was sent to the hospital for treatment. He is being kept in jail where they placed him on a suicide watch.”

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