ORLANDO - The 8-year-old son of a man who plotted to kill himself and his four children died Tuesday. A daughter was drowned earlier because a divorce would strip him of custody of the children.
Bryan Randall II died at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and Women.
The boy was brought to the hospital in critical condition Monday after his father, Bryan Randall, 37, drove his sport-utility vehicle into the path of a semitrailer truck. The wreck killed Randall and seriously injured another son, Julian, 6.
Over the weekend, Randall dumped his daughter, Yana, 2, and another son, Regal, 4, in a lake by a suburban office park. The girl drowned, but the boy was rescued by a fisherman Sunday morning and remained in serious condition Tuesday.
In a suicide note found in his wrecked SUV, Randall said, "I had to take them with me." He said being unemployed prevented him from fighting for their custody, and he wanted to be cremated with their bodies.
Randall picked up his children from his estranged wife, Lisa, 41, at a Burger King on Friday and failed to return them Sunday night as arranged.
The couple, married in 1994, separated over the summer.
At a brief news conference Tuesday after her son died, Lisa Randall thanked the public for their support and prayers. "Just continue with the prayers for my other children," she said.
The Randalls until recently seemed like a happy couple, said neighbors in Altamonte Springs. Things began to go bad when WorldCom collapsed and Bryan lost his job as a sales representative.
"He never did recover from that," said Bryan's father, the Rev. Bill Randall.
Randall was a former all-Ivy League basketball star at Dartmouth College.
- Information from the Orlando Sentinel was used in this report.
