A man killed eight of his relatives, including four children, on Sunday evening in a shooting at a home in Billings, Montana, that was also set on fire, according to authorities and local media reports.
Police have characterized the case as a family disturbance, according to Montana news outlet KULR.
The victims represented four generations of the blended family, ranging from a great-grandmother in her nineties to a seven-year-old girl, according to Jennifer Mercer, a neighbor and family friend who set up an online fundraiser to help cover funeral costs and other expenses and was authorized to release those details.
The suspect in the case was found outside the home with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. He was taken to hospital, where he later died.
Brad Ireland, whose former wife and two children were among the dead, identified the shooter as Alan Smith, ۴۴. Smith had recently been told to move out of the home, Ireland said.
An officer responded to a call reporting a shooter at a home in Billings’s west end area at about ۶pm, the city’s police department said. The officer heard gunshots fired from the back of the house arriving and then saw the home fully engulfed in flames.
The local Yellowstone county sheriff, Kent O’Donnell, told a news conference on Monday that all victims targeted in the shooting were dead – with “multiple adults and multiple juveniles” killed.
Firefighters were dispatched but had to wait until officers had secured the scene – and they also may have faced water access issues, officials said. “The delay in limited access presented significant challenges, fire conditions continued to worsen and the residents ultimately became … consumed by fire,” Matt Hoppel, the Billings fire chief said at Monday’s news conference.
O’Donnell added: “Because of the fire and obviously water that goes to suppress that fire, it’s going to slow our investigation of the crime scene recovery of evidence. So we ask for patience as we complete this investigation.”
Details about a motive were not immediately released, and neither was an explanation for how the fire was started. Authorities have asked the public to avoid the scene as investigators continue to collect evidence, and they expected to provide another update on Wednesday.
A statement from Billings police Sgt Jeff Stovall extended condolences “to everyone affected by this awful tragedy” while adding that authorities were intentionally limiting details about the case “to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation”.
The killings in Montana came after five people were killed in rural Forest Grove, Oregon, by a man who then evidently died by suicide, according to authorities.
Authorities on Tuesday identified the victims in that case as Mary Elizabeth Kimsey, ۸۵; Rowan Karla Kimsey, ۶۰; Stella Jade Kimsey, ۲۶; Linsey Mae Haraldsen, ۲۶; and Alvin Raymond Chu, ۲۷, according to the local Washington county sheriff’s office.
Their suspected killer was Benjamin C Parker, ۳۶, who was the partner of Stella Kimsey, officials said. Rowan and Mary Kimsey were Stella’s mother and grandmother, respectively, they said.
The killings in Oregon pushed the number of mass murders in the US for the year so far to at least ۱۶, according to information from the Gun Violence Archive, a nonpartisan resource. If the number of victims in the Montana case is verified, that number would increase to ۱۷ – including five in August alone.
The archive defines a mass murder as cases in which four or more victims are killed.
A substantial number of mass murders in the US fit the definition of a crime known as a family annihilation. That crime involves the killings of multiple close family members, most commonly by an armed male.
US communities have historically perceived family annihilations in isolation. But a July ۲۰۲۳ Indianapolis Star investigation found they were occurring across the US every five days on average – and raised questions about why the country has not sought a nationwide strategy to mitigate the frequency of that particular type of crime.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
