It's been nearly a week since a mother and daughter were gunned down in Lowellville in an apparent domestic dispute.

"It's just so senseless," Brittany Hudak said.

55-year-old Deborah Hudak and her 25-year-old daughter Cathryn Hudak were shot to death by Jonathan Crago, who was an ex-boyfriend of Cathryn's.

Crago later killed himself after a standoff with police.

Brittany Hudak, Cathryn's sister and Debbie's daughter, is still in shock.

"You see it on TV, you watch True Crime.," Brittany said. "We all love to watch those shows but you never actually think it is going to be your family, that it's going to be somebody you love, if it's somebody you know it's going to be a friend's cousin, a friends distant relative, you never think it's going to be your family."

Brittany said it was after Cathryn and Jonathan broke up in August, when Cathryn started receiving threatening messages.

"Never anything directly, I am going to kill you, I'm going to take your life, it was if you don't do A, B and C, you're going to see what happens or you're going to get it, so, any person who reads that you could kind of infer that something bad might happen but again never anything that was extremely direct that she could take and say, look he said he's going to murder me," Brittany said.

Brittany says her sister also mentioned Crago following her.

"She was worried about him showing up and there was a time period where she didn't want to leave the house, she didn't want to go places and we were kind of like are you ok, what's going on and she is like no, I just want to stay home and again kind of keeping it to herself a little bit but now hearing all this, all the pieces are kind of fitting and it's making sense," Brittany said.

While Brittany still doesn't know what led up to Crago shooting and killing her sister and mother, she's hoping anyone caught in the grips of domestic violence, will take it seriously.

"It can be very easy to read that and be like, he doesn't mean it or he's just mad and in some cases that can be true but it's not always the case," Brittany said. "There are situations like this where those words are said and they may be vague but you get the deadliest result from the vagueness from those words so I just want everyone to know if somebody comes to you and they say, what they said is kind of off, or it's not sitting right with me, you know take it serious, make that police report."

She would also like to see sentencing guidelines addressed for domestic violence offenders.

"The blame is not with police, it's not with judges because they also can only do so much," Brittany said. "You can file a report, you can get a protection order, but a protection order is just a piece of paper. It really comes down to the people who are writing these guidelines for how things are punished and then making sure that the police and the courts have the resources and the tools that they need so that when it comes time that somebody needs arrested for domestic violence that they can go to the jail, that there is room in the jail and that they can be there and not be released early. Same with prisons, if that is what their sentence is and they can be sent to prison on that, you know, we don't want them out early on good behavior for overcrowding because that is a violent offense, that could lead to where we are now."

For now, as the family continues to grieve, they lean on the memories of their loved ones.

"I think maybe down the road I might have to adopt a cat just in memory of Katy, because that was her thing," Brittany said. "However many cats she could sneak into the house without my mom noticing, that's how many cats they would have."

They also plan to live life the way Debbie and Katie did.

"I know my mom would want us to just continue to live your life, be like oh my god, don't be sad, don't be in your rooms, don't be depressed, her and my sister both," Brittany said. "They would just want us to just continue living our lives, obviously remembering them, talking about them, sharing stories but they would definitely want us to keep going."

If you need assistance with domestic violence, call the national hotline at 800-799-SAFE (7233). If it is an emergency, call 9-1-1.