LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- In a neighborhood of neat lawns and backyard swing sets, two young bodies were carried out of a red brick Cape Cod-style house, past a small statue of two children playing with a bicycle.

Police say Gail Lynn Coontz, a widowed single mom and college student, killed her son and daughter before going to the University of Louisville on Thursday and brandishing a gun in a counselor's office.

Slideshow: Widow Accused Of Killing Kids

The bodies of Greg Coontz, 14, and Nikki Coontz, 10, were found after the campus incident when city officers responded to a university police request to check on the children. Both died of multiple gunshot wounds, Louisville police spokesman Officer Phil Russell said.

Neighbors said they're more accustomed to seeing kids playing in the street than they are crime scene investigators pounding the pavement.

"When I seen them putting the tape up, my heart kind of sank," said neighbor Sheryl Hayden.

Hayden said that when she saw police on her block, she knew something was terribly wrong inside her neighbor's home.

Metro Police arrived about 9:20 a.m. after campus police told them to make a welfare check on two children living there.

Gail Coontz, 37, was charged with two counts of murder. She was also charged with one count of terroristic threatening for pointing a handgun at an officer in the campus incident, university police Maj. Kenny Brown said.

"It just all seems like it's going to be a bad dream and I'm going to wake up from it," said Patty Schneider, who lives across the street from the family. "It makes me sick," Schneider said. "The kids were good kids. I have teenagers like her son. It's just hard."

She said Coontz had recently gone back to school to get her degree.

"Strong lady raising the two children on her own and doing everything for them," she said.