DETROIT -- It was after midnight Sunday when Brenda Tucker picked up a pistol, went into a back room and shot herself in the Detroit bar where she worked.

After the ambulance arrived, her younger brother jumped into her car outside the bar and headed to the hospital where she was taken.

Neither made it there alive.

Ricky Tucker, 20, was killed in a car crash early Sunday as he rushed to check on his 21-year-old sister, police and family told the Free Press.

Both were at Texas Bar & Grill when Brenda Tucker, who suffers from depression, shot herself in the chest.

The siblings ended up at St. John Hospital, where they were pronounced dead.

"It's just one disaster after another for this poor family," said Regina Holman, who owns the bar. "I can't imagine what it's going to be like to bury two children."

Holman's son is married to Amandajo Holman, a sister of Brenda and Ricky Tucker.

Amandajo Holman was sleeping about 12:30 a.m. Sunday, she said, when she received a call from her mom about her sister and left for the hospital.

She talked to her brother by phone on the way and expected to see him at the hospital, but he didn't show up.

"After the doctors finally told us Brenda was dead, I called down to the bar to see about her cellphone, and that's when I was told Ricky had been in a car accident," she recalled.

Amandajo Holman left the hospital to go to the accident site, and returned to the hospital where her mom was waiting.

"She just called me and asked me where I was, and I could tell in her voice that Ricky didn't make it," Holman said.

Her siblings' deaths are another loss for 24-year-old Amandajo Holman, whose father, father-in-law and mother's longtime boyfriend also died this year.

Ed Falbo, who said he has known the family for decades, was at the bar Sunday when Brenda Tucker went into a back room with a gun. He described hearing a boom.

"We lost two babies at one time," Falbo said. "It's a bad situation."

Relatives of the Tuckers spent part of Sunday going through family photo albums and are working on funeral arrangements. They plan to put together a fund for people to donate to help with the burial costs.

Brenda Tucker was full of life, her sister said, adding that she did not know what led up to her thinking she could not go on.

"She was going to college to become something," Amandajo Holman said. "She was going to be a social worker."

Brenda Tucker had worked at the bar since she turned 18, those who knew her said. She and her brother lived in Eastpointe.

Ricky Tucker was drawn to music and loved to hang out with his niece and nephew. Amandajo Holman said there was never a dull moment with him.

"Ricky was Ricky," she said. "He was fun. He was wild. He was crazy, and he had an imagination."

Police arrived at the crash site at East Warren and Woodhall around 1:20 a.m., Detroit police spokeswoman Kelly Miner said.

"He was racing to the hospital to check on his sister," she said.

It appears that he crossed the center line and his car collided with an SUV, she said.

The other driver was taken to a hospital with minor injuries.

"It's just heart wrenching," Regina Holman said of the deaths.