BILLINGS, MT — Eight members of one Montana family, including four children, were killed after a shooting and fire at a home outside Billings that police say followed a family disturbance during dinner. Yellowstone County Sheriff Kent O’Donnell said the victims ranged in age from 7 to 92 and represented four generations of the same family.
Authorities said deputies reached the county home shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday after a 911 call about an active shooting event. Officers say they heard gunfire as they arrived and then found the house burning. The suspect, identified by officials as 44-year-old Alan Michael Smith, later died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being taken to a hospital.
Investigators said all people inside the residence had been accounted for by Thursday, though not every body had been removed from the scene earlier in the week. No gun had been recovered as of the sheriff’s latest update.
Sheriff says officers heard gunfire as the home was already burning
O’Donnell said officers first encountered Smith outside the residence, but he retreated into the house and more shots were heard. Deputies later found him in the back of the home with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was transported to a hospital, where he died.
The sheriff said officers did not realize at the time that Smith was the person responsible for the shooting. He added that the case remains under investigation. Authorities have not said what led to the disturbance or what sequence of events set off the violence inside the home.
First responders were dealing with two emergencies at once. The shooting scene turned into a major fire scene, and crews had to work through smoke, heat and the difficulty of getting enough water to the property.
Rural subdivision lacked hydrants, forcing crews to bring in water by truck
Officials said the house was in a county subdivision without city services, and the surrounding homes relied on wells. Because there were no nearby fire hydrants, crews had to haul in truckloads of water, set up a temporary tank and pump from that supply to fight the blaze.
O’Donnell said the home, which covered about 4,000 square feet, may have had multiple fires start inside it. The fire was finally extinguished in the early hours of Monday morning, but the scene remained difficult to search in the days that followed.
By Thursday, investigators said everyone known to have been inside the house had been accounted for. That update came after crews spent days carefully combing through the rubble and trying to recover remains from the burned structure.
Victims included a grandmother, her son, daughter and five grandchildren
Authorities identified Evelyn Smith, 92, as the family matriarch visiting for dinner. Dana Smith, 73, owned the home with his wife, Barbara Smith, 72. Their daughter, Megan Ireland-Ghekiere, 39, was also in the house with her children and stepchildren.
Those children were Owen Ireland, 13, and Chloe Ireland, 7, along with stepchildren Landon Ghekiere, 15, and Charlotte Ghekiere, 12, O’Donnell said. Megan’s husband, Adam Ghekiere, told The Associated Press that he was at his job at an airport in Billings when the shooting started and rushed back to the house.
The sheriff said the suspect had once lived at the residence but was not living there at the time of the shooting. He said neighbors have been leaving teddy bears, notes and other mementos near the home as the community tries to absorb the loss.
Community memorial grows as investigators continue to process the scene
O’Donnell said residents are grieving and trying to make sense of the killings. A memorial has formed near the house, and classmates, friends and neighbors have filled a notebook with messages for the victims’ families.
One note, the sheriff said, came from a classmate who wrote that they were sorry they would not see the children at school this year. Officials have not announced a motive, and they have not said whether the fire was deliberately set, accidental or tied directly to the shooting.
The investigation remains active as law enforcement pieces together what happened inside the home. For now, authorities say the case left eight dead, a burned house and a community searching for answers after a single dinner gathering turned fatal.
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