This is almost impossible to process.

A 45-year-old family patriarch shot and killed eight people inside and outside his Erie, Pennsylvania, home—including two young children and his pregnant daughter—before taking his own life, authorities say.

The unborn child also died. The Erie County coroner has classified that death, along with the other eight victims, as a homicide.

The massacre unfolded Friday afternoon near East 7th and Perry Streets. Police are still trying to determine what drove a man described by relatives as the head of the family to wipe out nearly everyone inside the home.

The first reports captured the sheer terror outside the house:

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According to the Associated Press, Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook identified the gunman as Matthew Stone Sr. Police Chief Rick Lorah said Stone died by suicide inside the residence; officials released the adult names after notifying relatives while withholding the children’s names under state law.

The adult victims were identified as Michelle Stone, 44; Angelina Stone, 24; Jonathan Stone, 19; Matthew Stone Jr., 21; Lora Roberts, 37; and Twila Tanner, 51.

A 5-year-old boy and a 1-year-old girl were also killed. State law prevented the coroner from releasing their names.

Angelina Stone was pregnant and had been due to give birth Monday. The coroner counted her unborn child among the homicide victims, bringing the number of lives taken by the gunman to nine.

Roberts and Tanner lived elsewhere. The remaining adult victims and both children lived at the Perry Street home, turning one address into the center of a loss that stretches across an entire family.

TalkErie reported that the coroner ruled all nine victim deaths homicides and Stone Sr.’s death a suicide. Seven of the eight people who were shot were members of his family; the eighth was a family friend.

The local report clarified a number that had caused confusion in early coverage. Nine people were found dead at the scene when the gunman was included, but the unborn child brought the coroner’s homicide count to nine victims.

That means ten lives ended in the house and the street outside it: eight people shot to death, one unborn child lost with her mother, and the gunman who killed himself.

Investigators say video and audio evidence captured muffled gunshots inside the home before two distressed women arrived and pounded on the door shortly before 5 p.m.

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The gunman then came outside and shot both women as they ran before returning to the house, police said.

Officers arrived within minutes of a ShotSpotter alert. They found two women dead outside, then deployed a drone and a robot before entering the silent home.

Inside, they found the two children on the first floor. Two women and two young men were discovered in a stairwell.

The gunman was found dead on the second floor with a handgun nearby.

Police have not announced a motive. Lorah said investigators are examining phones and speaking with surviving relatives to understand what happened before the killing began.

Authorities have urged the public not to turn unanswered questions into rumors.

Behind the horrifying numbers are people whose lives mattered.

Erie Times-News described Roberts as a mother of five whose own experience receiving help from the Mercy Center for Women inspired her to lift up other people. She worked as a caregiver and became a volunteer and former board member for Community of Caring, an organization serving homeless women.

Friends said Roberts regularly went to the Perry Street home to help her pregnant niece and neighbor, Angelina Stone. She had returned there trying to help when the massacre unfolded.

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The people who knew Roberts did not remember her as a statistic. They remembered a woman engaged to be married, a mother figure at work and someone colleagues called the main piece of their puzzle.

Her work caring for others was not a slogan attached after her death. It ran through her job, her community service and the way friends said she showed up for family members who needed her.

That is what brought her to the house on Perry Street—and placed her in the path of the gunman.

Just months before her death, Roberts had written publicly about the pain of violence in Erie and urged people to check on those they loved. The message now reads like a devastating summary of the compassion friends said defined her life.

The father of the toddler killed in the home said the gunman had appeared ordinary and gave no visible warning that anything this monstrous was coming.

Gov. Josh Shapiro offered the state’s full support to Erie officials and the victims’ families. Erie Mayor Daria Devlin told the grieving relatives that the entire community was standing with them.

A memorial outside the Perry Street home has continued to grow as Erie mourns:

There is no explanation that will make nine stolen lives feel less horrifying.

There is only the work now facing investigators, the grief carried by the surviving family, and a community trying to remember the victims for the lives they led, instead of the brutal way they were taken.

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If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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