A Louisiana man killed 8 children, 7 of his own. His family said warning signs preceded the tragedy

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By Zoe Sottile, Lauren Mascarenhas, Isabel Rosales, Maria Sole Campinoti, Taylor Romine, CNN

Shreveport, Louisiana (CNN) — Freddie Montgomery looked across the street as he walked home from visiting a neighbor and saw Shamar Elkins. The 31-year-old was sitting on the front porch of his Shreveport, Louisiana, home Saturday afternoon, Montgomery told CNN. The two men waved at each other as children played in the yard.

When Montgomery woke up and opened the curtains the next morning, he saw law enforcement entering the house across the street. And the police presence continued to grow.

He asked an officer if the scene was bad. The police said yes.

“Are we talking fatalities?” Montgomery asked. Multiple, the officer said.

“Loss of children?” Montgomery asked. Multiple, the officer said.

Elkins fatally shot eight children — seven of them his own — early Sunday morning, Shreveport police said, in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in more than two years. He also shot his wife and another woman. A third woman — his wife’s sister — and a 12-year-old girl jumped off the roof trying to escape.

(Police previously said it was a 13-year-old boy who jumped off the roof trying to escape.)

The attack spanned multiple homes.

“This is a tragic situation, maybe the worst tragic situation we’ve ever had in Shreveport,” Mayor Tom Arceneaux said in a Sunday news conference.

The youngest victim, Jayla Elkins, was just 3 years old, authorities said.

The other children killed are Shayla Elkins, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; Sariahh Snow, 11; Khedarrion Snow, 6; and Braylon Snow, 5, according to the Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office.

The eight children’s deaths more than double the number of homicides in Shreveport and Caddo Parish this year, according to the coroner’s office.

Arceneaux described the scene in the city of just over 180,000 people as “horrific.” This kind of shooting “rattles the entire city,” the mayor told CNN.

As the shooting unfolded, some of the children tried to escape out the back, a state representative said at a news conference Sunday.

Bullet holes could be seen in the back door of one of the homes on Monday.

Early morning quiet broken by gunfire

The first call came in just before 6 a.m.

Shreveport police received a call from someone on the roof of a house on West 79th Street, who said a suspect inside had just shot someone, Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said at a news conference Monday.

A few minutes later, another call came in.

The caller told police the suspect was a family member, and dispatch was told nine people lived at the home, Smith said.

The suspect, the caller said, had shot everyone inside the home.

The caller told dispatch that she and her children had fled from the roof and were now in the backyard.

Police arrived on the scene at 6:01 a.m., Smith said.

Minutes later, police received a third call about another shooting on Harrison Street. A woman said her boyfriend had shot her, taken her three children and fled the scene, Smith said. The caller identified the suspect as Elkins.

Around 6:15 a.m., Elkins, who was armed, carjacked a vehicle and led authorities on a chase into neighboring Bossier Parish, police said. Elkins was using a rifle during the incident, Shreveport Police Cpl. Chris Bordelon said.

At 6:29 a.m., officers shot Elkins. He was pronounced dead at the scene just after 7 a.m., Smith said.

Police — spread out across at least three crime scenes — were now starting to piece together why Elkins, who had posted a photo on Facebook of himself with his children after Easter service just weeks earlier, began his rampage.

‘Help me guard my mind and my emotions’

Four days after posting the Easter picture of his family, he reposted an inspirational prayer from another Facebook page that began, “Dear God, Today I ask You to help me guard my mind and my emotions.”

The prayer also asks for strength to “reject” depression, anger, anxiety and panic.

He had previously struggled with mental health issues, multiple family members told CNN.

Now Elkins and his wife, 34-year-old Shaneiqua Pugh, were in the process of divorcing. She filed for a divorce for infidelity, Troy Brown, Elkins’ brother-in-law, said.

“It seemed like he was having a hard time,” Brown said.

The woman who raised Elkins, but was not his biological mother, told The New York Times he tried to take his own life in February.

Elkins, who was in the Louisiana Army National Guard as a signal support system specialist and a fire support specialist, had recently stayed at the local VA hospital to get treatment for mental health issues, Brown’s cousin Crystal Brown-Page told CNN.

He came home “happy,” Brown said. “He loved his kids.”

Everything had felt like it was falling apart for Elkins, Brown said.

“I would constantly talk to my brother-in-law. ‘Let’s sit outside. Let’s play dominoes. Let’s play cards. Let’s go for a walk,’” Brown said.

Brown asked if Elkins needed to go back to the hospital, but Elkins allegedly told him he was OK.

“I’m just gonna deal with it,” Brown recalled him saying.

“I wish he went ahead and got the help,” Brown said.

Elkins and Pugh were supposed to go to court Monday to sign the divorce papers, Brown-Page said. Pugh had considered leaving Elkins before they were married, The New York Times reported.

He had told Pugh, The New York Times reported, he would kill her, their kids and himself if she did.

Brown, Elkins’ brother-in-law, said his daughter, the 12-year-old who jumped from the roof, just had some scratches from Sunday’s attack. His wife, Pugh’s sister, fractured bones from falling off the roof. But his son died in the massacre.

“I’m never gonna get to throw the football with him again,” Brown said in tears.

“These were eight babies, precious babies, babies that I took care of, helped take care of, helped raise daily, on a daily basis,” Brown said. “I’ve lost eight parts of me, because I loved each and every of them like they were my own and I took care of them like they were my own.”

‘This is the result when someone snaps’

By Monday morning, a memorial filled with flowers, balloons and stuffed animals could be seen in front of the family’s home, where community members trickled in and out throughout the day.

Some prayed. Others cried. A local school bus attendant, who lives on the other side of town, stopped by the home early Monday morning with flowers and balloons to offer her condolences.

“We just wanted to come and do something. It might not be a whole lot, but it’s something,” she told CNN.

Love One Louisiana Foundation, which also supported families who were impacted in a New Year’s attack on Bourbon Street, will help pay for the funerals, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry announced, and the Community Foundation of North Louisiana will help support the family that survived, said CEO Kristi Gustavson.

City Councilmember Tabatha Taylor broke down in tears Sunday and asked people to make better use of resources to address mental health challenges.

“This is not a freaking joke! This is real, and this is the result when someone snaps,” said Taylor.

She told CNN’s Phil Mattingly domestic violence in her community is “staggering,” with 30% of homicides being related to domestic violence, adding that the growing group of women affected are African American.

Investigators will determine whether this was a case of family annihilation — a deliberate attempt to wipe out one’s family all at once — former FBI Deputy Director and CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe said.

“I think the work to be done now is to go back and try to see those signs that were there for family members, for likely his spouse, for friends, for others,” McCabe said, “and work with the community on better understanding what steps to take when someone around you is spiraling into that sort of a depression.”

Montgomery, the neighbor who saw Elkins and the kids 12 hours before the shooting, said he saw the children every day playing in the street or the yard.

His first thought Sunday morning, he said, was about the children.

“You hope the children are all right,” Montgomery, himself a father, grandfather and great-grandfather, said. “But they were not.”

He hasn’t been able to come to grips with what happened.

“What type of father would do this to his children?” he asked.

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CNN’s Chris Boyette, Alaa Elassar, Leah Asmelash, Amanda Jackson, Sharif Paget, Andy Rose, Sneha Dhandapani and Cindy Von Quednow contributed to this report.