A Friday evening shooting turned an Erie, Pennsylvania, home and the street outside it into a mass-casualty scene, with nine people dead, including at least two children and the man believed to have opened fire, authorities said.
When police reached the house near East Seventh and Perry streets, city officials said Saturday, there was no longer an active danger to anyone nearby.
45-year-old Matthew Stone Sr., believed to be the shooter was among the dead, with authorities pointing to an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The first alert came from ShotSpotter shortly before 5 p.m., drawing police to Erie’s east side. Witnesses later placed a gunman outside the property before he went into the residence.
Inside, the horrific scene included the bodies of 19-year-old Jonathan and 21-year-old Matthew Stone, his sons, his 44-year-old wife Michelle Stone, and the suspected shooter.
Stone also killed his heavily pregnant daughter Angelina, and her two children, 22-month-old Amari’anna and 5-year-old Isiah.
GoFundMe pages named Michelle’s sister, Lora Roberts and her friend Twila Tanner as two of the people killed on the residences lawn.
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Tanner’s fundraiser described her as dying while trying to help Roberts shield children from a violent person.
“On October 9th in Erie, Pennsylvania, Twila Tanner tragically lost her life while bravely trying to help a friend protect her family from a violent and dangerous individual. In a moment of courage and selflessness, Twila put herself in harm’s way to help others,” the fundraiser read.
According to reports, Roberts and Tanner heard gunshots coming from inside the home and banged on the door to render aid. Matthew allegedly exited the residence and shot them to death before going back inside.
Roberts and Tanner had come to the home to give Angelina a ride to the hospital, NBC News reported.
Police brought in SWAT during the response, tried to contact the man inside and later entered the home with a warrant, ABC News reported.
The loud bursts heard during the tactical operation were not more shots, city officials later explained, but flash-bang devices.
Officials also emphasized that the case was not a drawn-out standoff and that the victims were already dead before officers went inside.
Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah called the case one of the hardest scenes of his nearly three decades in law enforcement.
“I want to be candid with our community. This is one of the most difficult and heartbreaking scenes our officers and investigators have ever encountered,” Lorah said. “The loss of life is devastating, and the circumstances we are working through are deeply disturbing.”
Lorah confirmed the suspected shooter was dead and that the public faced no ongoing threat, but he kept the interior details private out of respect for the victims, their loved ones and the active investigation.
“We will not speculate about a motive or any information that could compromise this investigation,” Lorah said, according to CBS News.
Police had not publicly explained what set off the killings.
The suspected shooter was described in one report as a 45-year-old family patriarch, with victims said to include his pregnant daughter, Angelina Stone, and her two young children, 5-year-old Isaiah and Amari’anna.
The baby was due this upcoming Wednesday.
In Florida, another mother arrived for a child exchange and walked into another family death scene.
The Cocoa Police Department said the mother had gone to Joseph Kyle Dingwall’s home to pick up 5-year-old Aria Dingwall and 7-year-old Remy Dingwall because it was her turn to have custody.
“The door was partially ajar, and she went inside and found all three deceased,” Cocoa Police Chief Evander Collier IV said.
Joseph Kyle Dingwall, 37, was identified as the father.
Security video showed Dingwall pacing, according to investigators, and police had been called to the home 11 times before.
Marcos Garcia, who lives across the street, told WESH-TV he heard two shots around 12:20 a.m. but did not call police.
“Two gunshots. Two clear gunshots, and it was 12.20 a.m., midnight,” Garcia said.
Investigators had not established whether those sounds came from the house, WESH reported.
The children’s mother, Olivia, later shared a message through WESH reporter Gail Paschall-Brown.
“The children’s mother, Olivia, tells me she wants everybody to know how much she loved these babies and how amazing they are,” Paschall-Brown said.
In New York City, rage followed a shackled Angel Carrasco out of a police station Thursday after his arrest in a balcony plunge that killed Nathaly Ramirez and left their infant daughter alive at a hospital.
Carrasco, 31, smiled as officers moved him past spectators who shouted after him.
Police allege Carrasco threw Ramirez, 23, and 8-month-old Angel Novalty Carrasco-Ramirez from a 15th-floor balcony before sunrise Tuesday.
Ramirez died, while the New York Post reported that the baby was still alive at Jacobi Hospital.
Law enforcement sources told the Post that Carrasco showed up at Ramirez’s apartment with flowers after two earlier domestic violence arrests there, hoping she would take him back.
After that failed, authorities allege, Carrasco threw Ramirez and the baby from the balcony and ran.
“I heard someone shouting, ‘Jump!’ It was a male voice,” neighbor Robin Mendzies told the Post. “Then I heard a big thud and a woman wailing, ‘No, please, no!’ It sounded like she was begging for an inevitable thing not to happen.”
Ramirez’s high school friend Dominique Rosado remembered her final act as a mother trying to save her child.
“In the last moment of her life she was protecting her daughter,” Rosado told the Post. “That’s what it means to be a mother. She was a good mother.”
Local officers and U.S. Marshals arrested Carrasco on Wednesday evening.
Carrasco had been arrested at Ramirez’s apartment in January on a third-degree assault charge after allegedly slapping her during an argument over him talking to an ex-girlfriend.
Three days later, police charged him with breaking into the apartment and waiting for Ramirez to return.
He also had at least one earlier arrest involving threatening texts to another ex-girlfriend and two additional arrests on unrelated allegations.
