A man killed eight relatives, including his sister and four children, at a family dinner in Montana weeks after his parents asked him to move out, authorities said Wednesday.
The attack unfolded early Sunday evening on White Star Circle just outside Billings at a home owned by victims Dana Smith, 73, and Barbara Smith, 72, officials said.
The homeowners were killed along with Megan Ireland-Ghekiere, 39, and her four children, Owen Ireland, 13; Chloe Ireland, 7; Landon Ghekiere, 15; and Charlotte Ghekiere, 12, authorities said.
Evelyn Smith, 92 — whom interim Yellowstone County Sheriff Kent O’Donnell called the “family matriarch” — did not live at the home but was there Sunday for dinner. She was killed.
O’Donnell identified the shooter as Alan Michael Smith, 44, saying he carried out a “very complex” attack. He was found dead as authorities sought the killer.
Smith is the brother of victim Megan Ireland-Ghekiere and thus an uncle to all four of the younger victims, Billings police said.
Dana and Barbara Smith were the killer’s parents and Evelyn Smith was his grandmother, according to police.
Smith had once lived in that house and had been asked to move out weeks earlier, Brad Ireland — Megan Ireland-Ghekiere’s ex-husband — told The Associated Press.
O’Donnell confirmed that Alan Smith had once lived at the house but wasn’t residing there when the violence occurred Sunday.
“This is an ongoing criminal investigation with eight victims, making this very complex,” O’Donnell said.
The killings wiped out members from four generations, said 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 the details.
Smith arrived at the home at about 5:49 p.m., and 11 minutes later neighbors believed they heard the sound of fireworks, officials said. That kind of noise, especially in the summer, wouldn’t necessarily alarm anyone, O’Donnell said.
But at 6:02 p.m., dispatchers received a call from a “female” voice inside the house, and Yellowstone County sheriff’s deputies arrived at 6:10 p.m., officials said.
The children were all very close and everyone got along, with their parents remaining amicable even after having divorced, according to Mercer.
“Charlotte was the hero that dialed 911,” Mercer said told NBC News in a statement. “She tried to save her family. She lived by her favorite quote, ‘I love you more.’”
When police officers and deputies arrived, they “confronted the suspect in the front yard, where he retreated into the house,” O’Donnell said.
More “gunshots were heard within the household” before the shooter went to the back of the property, O’Donnell said.
At about 6:13 p.m., a deputy “heard a final shot, which was broken away from the rest of the shots,” according to O’Donnell.
By about 6:22, police officers and sheriff’s deputies “made entrance into the backyard,” found a male victim there with a gunshot wound and began lifesaving measures on him, O’Donnell said.
“At this time, it wasn’t known that he was actually the suspect of all this,” O’Donnell said. “He was just a person down, and law enforcement did what they’re trained to do. They got him out of the hot zone and provided what first aid they could. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.”
The blaze continued until about 1 a.m. Monday, Billings Fire Department Chief Matt Hoppel said.
Another complicating factor in the fire was that the house sat outside Billings city limits on county land where fire hydrants were not mandatory.
“They had to haul in truckloads of water, set up a temporary tank and pump out of that tank,” O’Donnell said. “So the fire suppression portion of this was very, very difficult.”
The Smith family moved to Montana from the Seattle area.
When Megan Ghekiere and Ireland divorced six years ago, she moved to Montana with their children, her ex-husband said.
Megan Ghekiere would then meet Adam Ghekiere, who would become her second husband. He was working and not at the Smith home when gunfire erupted.
“We are so grateful for the prayers, the love, the support that we’re getting from the nation,” Ghekiere said.
The blended family appeared to be very close, emotionally and geographically, with Evelyn Smith, Dana’s elderly mother, living in a nearby retirement home, Ireland said.
“They were nice,” neighbor Donna Heisler, 67, told NBC News on Tuesday. “I talked to Barbara, the wife, at a couple of garage sales.”
Heisler said her neighbors appeared to enjoy their privacy.
“They kind of kept to themselves. Really weren’t a very outgoing couple,” Heisler said. “They weren’t the socialites on the block, so you’d see them once in a while, but they weren’t overly outgoing.”
She added: “And coming from a bigger city maybe more the way they preferred to have it.”
Ireland said Alan Smith had moved in with his parents in Montana and stayed with them for years before he was asked to leave a couple of weeks ago.
Ireland called Alan Smith a “hermit” and said, “No one knew what he did in there 24/7.”
Smith’s name was not connected to any criminal records in Montana and Washington.
“We had not been called to this residence before, and we had not had any prior contact with the suspect,” O’Donnell said.
Adam Ghekiere, who works at the airport in Billings, learned of the shootings over dispatch radio, and when he couldn’t reach family on the phone, he raced to the crime scene.
Ghekiere’s children weren’t supposed to be there, he said, because family dinner was usually on Friday.
Ghekiere said police have confirmed to him that Charlotte was the one who dialed 911 from inside the house.
“I keep hearing her — every time I would say, ‘I love you,’ she would say, ‘I love you more,’” Ghekiere told the AP.
