A photo album and a slain mother’s Bible both remarkably survived after multiple fires were set in a house where a twisted family member killed eight of his relatives.
“There are rays of good and sunshine that come through this,” Interim Yellowstone County Sheriff Kent O’Donnell said as he addressed the media on Wednesday following the tragic events at a 4,000-square-foot home just outside Billings, Montana.
Sheriff O’Donnell described how one of his deputies was sifting through the ashes of the destroyed house when he came across the “fairly intact” family photo album and Bible belonging to homeowner Barbara Smith.
“This morning as I arrived on scene, detectives came to me and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this. Come look at this’,” Sheriff O’Donnell said.
“I went over to some of the stuff that had been excavated from the house. They had a family photo album that is fairly intact. And what I can’t help but think, for some reason, was preserved is Barbara’s personal Bible with her family information in the cover of it and hardly a mark on it,” the officer said, emotion catching in his voice.
“If that doesn’t make you think there’s something higher involved in our lives,” he added.
Barbara Smith, 72, and her 73-year-old husband, Dana, were having dinner at the house with their blended family on Sunday when, deputies believe, their son, Alan Smith, 44, who had recently been kicked out, came to the property and started shooting, Sheriff O’Donnell said.
All eight victims were part of the same blended family, with the oldest being 92-year-old matriarch Evelyn Smith, who was visiting.
The other victims were named as Megan Ireland-Gheikere, 39, her two children, Owen Ireland, 13, and Chloe Ireland, 7, and her two step-children, Charlotte Ghekiere, 12, and Landon Ghekiere, 15.
The killer is believed to have arrived at the house around 5:50 p.m. local time, and neighbors reported hearing a sound “like fireworks” 10 minutes later.
Follow the latest news on the tragic massacre of a family in Montana:
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At 6:01 p.m., a female inside the house called 911, telling the dispatcher that people were hurt, as gunshots could be heard in the background, said Sheriff O’Donnell.
After talking with dispatchers, the female suddenly stopped speaking, but the line remained open for some time, according to authorities.
Cops from Yellowstone County and the Billings Police Department arrived on the scene at 6:10 p.m. and confronted the shooter at the front of the already-smoking house, according to Sheriff O’Donnell.
The suspect then ran into the house and more gunshots were heard, before he ran into the backyard, which was surrounded by a 5-foot privacy fence.
A further gunshot was heard at 6:15 p.m., just seconds before flames started shooting out of the house.
Because the property sits outside of Billings city limits, it has no fire hydrants in front of it, making the blaze harder to tackle, the sheriff explained.
Multiple fires are believed to have been started inside the property.
The suspect had lived in the house before but wasn’t currently residing there, Sheriff O’Donnell said.
He confirmed police had had no prior contact with Smith and hadn’t been called to the property before.
Authorities are still sifting through the remains of the house “shovel by shovel,” with some of the victims’ bodies still inside the property, Sheriff O’Donnell said.
Multiple weapons were recovered from the residence, but authorities are yet to carry out autopsies or provide further details as to a possible motive.
“It’s just tragic, it just tugs at me and tugs at the community,” Sheriff O’Donnell said.
