Oct. 12, 2026
Patriarch Of Family Kills 9, Including Grandchildren and Pregnant Daughter
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RSS Feed It’s happened again, this time in Eerie, Pennsylvania. Police say a 45-year-old grandfather and father has killed his entire family along with a family friend. The details of this crime are horrific, with police describing a scene too gruesome to fully reveal. Video and audio evidence points to the man killing his 1 and 5 year old grandchildren, then four other family members on the stairwell, before being killing two women who were pounding on the front door and then ultimately himself. Officials are trying to determine motive, with neighbors and friends expressing disbelief, in this latest in a string of familicides in this country this year.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Monday, October 12th, and we simply cannot believe we are reporting about this again. Another mass shooting in which a man is believed to have essentially taken out his entire family. With that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. This keeps happening. This time, the number of robes is eight people dead.
00:00:26
Speaker 2: Yes, and some people are even saying nine because one of those people was pregnant and had a child due.
00:00:32
Speaker 1: Should be nine.
00:00:33
Speaker 2: Yes, I believe the count has kind of officially gone up to nine. Ten people are dead because the killer himself is dead as well.
00:00:39
Speaker 1: Yes, 100%, baby. It should be nine. That is a correction. We need to be saying it that way. This woman was about to give birth. birth. And yes, in most places in this country, if a woman is pregnant and she is killed, that's a double homicide. So yes.
00:00:53
Speaker 2: And it does sound like authorities are absolutely adjusting the number dead to 10 now, including the killer.
00:01:00
Speaker 3: So nine dead.
00:01:01
Speaker 2: And there will be no charges because yes, the person responsible, they believe, is dead. A 45-year-old man and a grandfather. This is the word we are getting, that this man killed his own grandchildren, his children, one of whom, yes, was days away from giving birth, and then a friend of his pregnant daughter. This all happened in Erie, Pennsylvania, and it began just before 5 p.m.
00:01:26
Speaker 3: On Friday.
00:01:27
Speaker 1: Those, um, the ages, we'll find out more about the family and the ages, and so much of the details that are being confirmed are from other family members, but Robes, we've I'm trying to think of all these familicides and a lot of grandkids involved necessarily. Just to hear you read that out loud. I've been reading the story all morning, but to hear it out loud, just ugh.
00:01:48
Speaker 2: It's so difficult to get your head around. And the crime itself, look, police actually said to spare, we'll give you the exact quote, but to spare the community, to spare people. they weren't going into too many details because it's just that awful. They were talking about their officers experiencing the worst crime scene they've ever seen in their entire professional careers. These are veteran police officers describing it this way, but they say they have video and audio evidence that shows that gunshots were fired in the home.
00:02:19
Speaker 3: Okay, so that happens.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: And then you see two and they've been described as distressed women running towards the home, and they begin pounding on the door of the house. That is when you see the gunman stepping outside, and he guns down these two women.
00:02:36
Speaker 3: We have their ages. The two women who were found outside the home, they.
00:02:39
Speaker 2: Were ages 51 and 37, and then according to police, the gunman then went back inside and and killed himself.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: They vaguely are referencing audio and video that's out there. Is it your understanding that they had the actual shooting on camera?
00:02:59
Speaker 2: I don't know if they had the actual shooting, but from just all the neighborhood cams and door cams, they have the audio and they have some visuals. I do believe that you can see the two women outside from other neighbors' ring cameras and door cameras and just surveillance cameras that they know that that's exactly how those two women died.
00:03:18
Speaker 3: And it was after everyone in the home.
00:03:20
Speaker 2: Was already shot, that they were responding to gunshots. So police then, they don't know what they're dealing with. They come pretty quickly. They actually deployed a drone and a robot. And the robot entered the house because they didn't know what kind of standoff they may be facing. And that's how they found the bodies, first, of a five-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl.
00:03:45
Speaker 3: They were on the first floor.
00:03:46
Speaker 2: And then they found two women and two, you said it was young men, correct, is how they were described?
00:03:52
Speaker 1: Young men, yeah.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: Dead in the stairwell of the home, and then they found the body of the shooter upstairs. And again, he's been described as a 45-year-old grandfather and father, and everyone was related to him except for one of the female friends who was with, we don't know if that's one of the women who came up onto the stoop after the fact. But just this idea that somebody could literally take out their entire family. And you mentioned the only reason why we know a little bit of who these people are, because the pregnant woman, her one-year-old, the father of that child who came up on the scene was able to recognize, obviously, the home and talk about who had been inside at the time. And he gave some insight that... The daughter was days away from giving birth to a third child, and he even had the name of the baby. So it's been added to the death toll.
00:04:58
Speaker 1: Bro, there were two questions I had about that story because two details stood out to me. One, why was everybody in the stairwell? And two, how did those women know to rush to that house and that something was going on? Where were they coming from? Did they drive over? Did they walk over? Did they hear something? What was going on? Those are the two details that jumped out at me first.
00:05:25
Speaker 2: And that's interesting you point that out because police in their press conference said that they are now talking to relatives and specifically want to look at the cell phones of all of the victims, but especially the two women who ran towards that home.
00:05:40
Speaker 3: The Erie police chief, this was his exact quote.
00:05:43
Speaker 2: They knew something was going on at that house, and we have.
00:05:48
Speaker 3: To figure out what that is.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: That somehow, perhaps maybe, I don't know if, my thought is if the two kids were shot first, the adults hear it, or the older folks, and they come running down the stairs, and that's when they're greeted with the gunfire from Grandpa.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: They're not a threat. Why'd you have to shoot the kids? They're just not a threat. Every adult, okay, why did you have to shoot the kids? And to your explanation there, Rob, if he shot the kids first, that's even more confusing. Why start with the kids? What is going on?
00:06:21
Speaker 2: It's horrific to think about. Yes, because a one-year-old couldn't even live to tell what happened. A one-year-old wouldn't be able to say, my grandpa... shot everybody. They can barely even talk. The five-year-old also not reliable witness testimony. So why would you even need to do that? And so the question or the thought is that perhaps those two women who were rushing, maybe one of the adults heard the gunshots, texted someone who they knew was nearby, say, come help, you know, shots ringing out or we were in trouble or who knows, but there, it seems like police are implying that there was some sort of communication between the house and those two women who were coming up. And the reason why we don't have all of the names of the victims as of this recording, surviving family members are still being notified at this point in time. But the only indication we have from police is, They don't have a motive. They suggested mental health could be a factor. Obviously, it would have to be, would it not?
00:07:29
Speaker 1: Rosewood, again, how many of these familicides we cover? None of these guys have a history of mental illness. We have covered one in Louisiana. In fact, they did. But Robes, we several times in these instances were very upstanding members of the community, guys who had good jobs. Who knows? We don't know what the circumstances are here. But Robes, anybody who would do this, I would suggest, has to have some kind of mental illness or some problem. But why are we seeing so damn many of these?
00:07:56
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:07:56
Speaker 2: And look, a lot of these fit a familiar pattern. But what was interesting about this case is 5 o'clock on a Fridayâ We see a lot of these planned overnight. Wait until everybody in the house is sleeping. Therefore, you won't have anyone who's able to fight back. The man of the house plans this out meticulously while everyone's sleeping, goes into each bedroom. You oftentimes find these victims in their bedrooms. because that's how they're able to carry out this many homicides at one point, and then they kill themselves. This one is just so different, because middle of the afternoon on a Friday, and to know that people were rushing to the scene, and he was almost ready for them, it seems, to be banging on the door, but opening and just knowing he was going to kill them first.
00:08:46
Speaker 1: Well, to have right, those were her two kids, the mom, the pregnant mom.
00:08:52
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:08:52
Speaker 2: So according to the father of the one-year-old, the daughter who was killed, the one-year-old was his daughter that he shared with her. And then she had another son who was five and then had a baby on the way. So that's how we're getting any of that information. Also that the non-relative was her friend, like her friend was with her.
00:09:15
Speaker 1: That's an awful... She's banging on a door and her kids are dead on the other side of that door, it sounds like.
00:09:21
Speaker 3: It's horrific.
00:09:23
Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
00:09:24
Speaker 3: And this is the actual quote from the police chief.
00:09:29
Speaker 2: Out of respect for the victims and the families, I will not discuss the details of what our officers encountered inside that home. But I want our community to understand the gravity of what happened there. and the profound impact this tragedy has had on those involved and on our community as a whole. When we come back, we're going to talk about what neighbors, friends, what people have said about this family, and unfortunately, it falls right in line with all of these recent familicides we've seen a certain uptick in this summer and this year. Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ. We are talking about another familicide, another mass shooting where nine people were killed. 10 are dead. The killer turned the gun on himself. And we say nine because yes, there were eight people, but a pregnant woman, it's believed to be his own daughter who was pregnant with his grandchild due to be born within days. This is an awful situation and And we mentioned Erie cops don't have a motive yet. They've suggested that mental health might be a part of this. But family members and neighbors and friends have been speaking out from someone who's known this family for more than 30 years.
00:10:55
Speaker 3: Listen to these quotes, babe. They said that the shooter, the. the grandfather, the father was, quote.
00:11:01
Speaker 2: A good guy. And then he started going downhill with everything. They were a lovely family. Who would have thought this would ever happen? The father of the toddler who was killed, so he knew the grandfather obviously very well, described him as every day smiling and being just, you would think like nothing like this could possibly happen. So they're all describing him as not distressed, nothing out of the ordinary, a good guy, a nice guy, a family guy, the patriarch of his family. Literally, that's how people are describing him. People have known this family. They have been in this eerie Pennsylvania community for 30 years, and people are shocked about what happened and how it could have happened.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: That doesn't make sense, babe. And we've heard that, like you said, familiar patterns. In many of these deadly, you cannot know one Folks are, obviously, this is a shocking crime, but folks can't come up with any hints sometime that there was trouble in some of these families before stuff happens, babe.
00:12:08
Speaker 3: It's jaw-dropping.
00:12:09
Speaker 2: People are, in the Pennsylvania area at least, bringing up a 1982 massacre in Wilkes-Barre.
00:12:15
Speaker 3: That's about four hours from here.
00:12:17
Speaker 2: Apparently, this is one of the worst mass murders in American history at the time. But you think about where we are now, and it just falls in line. George Banks, he killed 13 people. Five of them were his own children. Four of them were his children's mothers. It was just this horrific... unthinkable, one-of-a-kind massacre in 1982. He actually just died last November, so he made news again. So I think he's on people's minds. But to think that that was this big standalone, standout, horrific crime back in 1982, that's how far you had to go back to think about the last time there was a mass familicide in this area in Pennsylvania. But if you just look this year, and we have been covering it, we've been covering them, unfortunately, ad nauseum. We just had one last week in New Jersey where this doctorate, he had his doctorate from Quinnipiac University School of Law, a lawyer, a senior vice president at an insurance company, killing himself, his wife, their 24-year-old daughter who was about to get her master's degree. Then in Oregon, Benjamin Parker killing.
00:13:21
Speaker 3: One, two, three, four, five members of his family.
00:13:24
Speaker 2: We have case after case after case, babe, that's just been so disturbing.
00:13:31
Speaker 1: And I don't know this, Robes, case after case after case, and we often don't get a lot of follow-up and a lot of answers and explanation because the killer is dead. The case is closed. We don't get a trial where questions get asked about mental health and signs. So, Robes, what do we do with these? Is enough study and attention being paid attention to something now that is taking more lives in the U.S., family members taking out their families, than school shootings? If we had this many school shootings, Roams, we'd be paying attention differently.
00:14:05
Speaker 3: We'd be paying attention.
00:14:06
Speaker 2: And maybe is it because other families aren't as involved? It's mostly insular. It's within a family. It's a horrific family tragedy where the entire family is gone.
00:14:19
Speaker 3: So the outrage is left to a.
00:14:22
Speaker 2: Few remaining family members, but you don't have the community necessarily at large with someone at large who's gone in and destroyed homes. multiple families it's just almost as if because it happened insularly that people just brush it under the carpet and say oh well they it doesn't affect us it doesn't it doesn't bother us it doesn't it didn't put anyone else.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: At risk you're right baby we move on this doesn't some it doesn't feel like a community tragedy maybe it happened at that one house but when it's a school when it's a an office right several dead from different communities different families that It impacts you differently. Maybe, Robes, but if, I don't know when we start paying attention and studying and figuring this out, but we are losing generations of families in shootings this year. Babe, I don't know what to do or how to do it. These cannot be one-off. And we keep saying, babe, the coverage of them, we're seeing more. We said this about school shootings. Aren't they inspiring other or putting this in people's Are people not getting this idea, babe, from seeing it happen so much? I don't know.
00:15:31
Speaker 2: I can't explain what this uptick is, but there certainly has been one in recent years, but it feels like this year is exceptional. April in Louisiana, we had this man shoot and kill eight kids, seven of them his own in Iowa. Ryan McFarland killed six family members in Florida in June. Ryan killed his wife and their daughters. The one in Michigan really stood out. He killed his wife and his six kids in Minnesota. We had the man stab his mother first and his wife and his seven-year-old daughter at the daycare.
00:16:04
Speaker 3: It just goes on and on and on. It was like.
00:16:07
Speaker 2: It's been happening at least once a month. And in some cases.
00:16:12
Speaker 3: In August, we had more than one in one month. And now here we are in October with another one. So this is just beyond disturbing.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: And it's important that we do get some answers into the whys. I know that those are the hardest ones to get sometimes, but we're awaiting more information from Erie police as they do try to investigate what went wrong. But like you said- when everyone in the family is gone, there aren't a lot of people left beating the drum, asking for those answers.
00:16:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, what investigation? The case is open and it's closed.
00:16:47
Speaker 3: There's no trial.
00:16:49
Speaker 1: Who's looking into this history and investigating? People at least don't have resources to dedicate to a crime that's over.
00:16:55
Speaker 3: That's already been solved.
00:16:57
Speaker 1: This happened. We know who did it. We have other things to do. And I understand that, but this is becoming a little bit of a, A what? Beyond just, this is a phenomenon now that's taking place, at least this year. Is it a one-off? I don't know. And do we not cover it? Or a lot of folks, we don't like to cover it or talk about it that much because it's ugly. Babe, somebody want to hear this morning on morning TV that a granddad killed his two grandkids and they were one and five?
00:17:25
Speaker 2: And his pregnant daughter and other members of his family know that people don't want to digest that along with their Cheerios.
00:17:32
Speaker 1: It's one off and we move on.
00:17:34
Speaker 2: So we don't want to talk about it. But not talking about it is very, very dangerous. And look, mental health needs to become a better and bigger focus. We talk about it all the time, but what are we actually doing about it? This hopefully, I don't know, I just hope it at least shakes some people up enough to start examining it. not only their own lives, but people around them and make sure people get the help they need. It is out there. It's just, I don't think people know where to turn. Unfortunately, we always appreciate you listening to us, everyone. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes.
00:18:05
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Monday, October 12th, and we simply cannot believe we are reporting about this again. Another mass shooting in which a man is believed to have essentially taken out his entire family. With that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. This keeps happening. This time, the number of robes is eight people dead.
00:00:26
Speaker 2: Yes, and some people are even saying nine because one of those people was pregnant and had a child due.
00:00:32
Speaker 1: Should be nine.
00:00:33
Speaker 2: Yes, I believe the count has kind of officially gone up to nine. Ten people are dead because the killer himself is dead as well.
00:00:39
Speaker 1: Yes, 100%, baby. It should be nine. That is a correction. We need to be saying it that way. This woman was about to give birth. birth. And yes, in most places in this country, if a woman is pregnant and she is killed, that's a double homicide. So yes.
00:00:53
Speaker 2: And it does sound like authorities are absolutely adjusting the number dead to 10 now, including the killer.
00:01:00
Speaker 3: So nine dead.
00:01:01
Speaker 2: And there will be no charges because yes, the person responsible, they believe, is dead. A 45-year-old man and a grandfather. This is the word we are getting, that this man killed his own grandchildren, his children, one of whom, yes, was days away from giving birth, and then a friend of his pregnant daughter. This all happened in Erie, Pennsylvania, and it began just before 5 p.m.
00:01:26
Speaker 3: On Friday.
00:01:27
Speaker 1: Those, um, the ages, we'll find out more about the family and the ages, and so much of the details that are being confirmed are from other family members, but Robes, we've I'm trying to think of all these familicides and a lot of grandkids involved necessarily. Just to hear you read that out loud. I've been reading the story all morning, but to hear it out loud, just ugh.
00:01:48
Speaker 2: It's so difficult to get your head around. And the crime itself, look, police actually said to spare, we'll give you the exact quote, but to spare the community, to spare people. they weren't going into too many details because it's just that awful. They were talking about their officers experiencing the worst crime scene they've ever seen in their entire professional careers. These are veteran police officers describing it this way, but they say they have video and audio evidence that shows that gunshots were fired in the home.
00:02:19
Speaker 3: Okay, so that happens.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: And then you see two and they've been described as distressed women running towards the home, and they begin pounding on the door of the house. That is when you see the gunman stepping outside, and he guns down these two women.
00:02:36
Speaker 3: We have their ages. The two women who were found outside the home, they.
00:02:39
Speaker 2: Were ages 51 and 37, and then according to police, the gunman then went back inside and and killed himself.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: They vaguely are referencing audio and video that's out there. Is it your understanding that they had the actual shooting on camera?
00:02:59
Speaker 2: I don't know if they had the actual shooting, but from just all the neighborhood cams and door cams, they have the audio and they have some visuals. I do believe that you can see the two women outside from other neighbors' ring cameras and door cameras and just surveillance cameras that they know that that's exactly how those two women died.
00:03:18
Speaker 3: And it was after everyone in the home.
00:03:20
Speaker 2: Was already shot, that they were responding to gunshots. So police then, they don't know what they're dealing with. They come pretty quickly. They actually deployed a drone and a robot. And the robot entered the house because they didn't know what kind of standoff they may be facing. And that's how they found the bodies, first, of a five-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl.
00:03:45
Speaker 3: They were on the first floor.
00:03:46
Speaker 2: And then they found two women and two, you said it was young men, correct, is how they were described?
00:03:52
Speaker 1: Young men, yeah.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: Dead in the stairwell of the home, and then they found the body of the shooter upstairs. And again, he's been described as a 45-year-old grandfather and father, and everyone was related to him except for one of the female friends who was with, we don't know if that's one of the women who came up onto the stoop after the fact. But just this idea that somebody could literally take out their entire family. And you mentioned the only reason why we know a little bit of who these people are, because the pregnant woman, her one-year-old, the father of that child who came up on the scene was able to recognize, obviously, the home and talk about who had been inside at the time. And he gave some insight that... The daughter was days away from giving birth to a third child, and he even had the name of the baby. So it's been added to the death toll.
00:04:58
Speaker 1: Bro, there were two questions I had about that story because two details stood out to me. One, why was everybody in the stairwell? And two, how did those women know to rush to that house and that something was going on? Where were they coming from? Did they drive over? Did they walk over? Did they hear something? What was going on? Those are the two details that jumped out at me first.
00:05:25
Speaker 2: And that's interesting you point that out because police in their press conference said that they are now talking to relatives and specifically want to look at the cell phones of all of the victims, but especially the two women who ran towards that home.
00:05:40
Speaker 3: The Erie police chief, this was his exact quote.
00:05:43
Speaker 2: They knew something was going on at that house, and we have.
00:05:48
Speaker 3: To figure out what that is.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: That somehow, perhaps maybe, I don't know if, my thought is if the two kids were shot first, the adults hear it, or the older folks, and they come running down the stairs, and that's when they're greeted with the gunfire from Grandpa.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: They're not a threat. Why'd you have to shoot the kids? They're just not a threat. Every adult, okay, why did you have to shoot the kids? And to your explanation there, Rob, if he shot the kids first, that's even more confusing. Why start with the kids? What is going on?
00:06:21
Speaker 2: It's horrific to think about. Yes, because a one-year-old couldn't even live to tell what happened. A one-year-old wouldn't be able to say, my grandpa... shot everybody. They can barely even talk. The five-year-old also not reliable witness testimony. So why would you even need to do that? And so the question or the thought is that perhaps those two women who were rushing, maybe one of the adults heard the gunshots, texted someone who they knew was nearby, say, come help, you know, shots ringing out or we were in trouble or who knows, but there, it seems like police are implying that there was some sort of communication between the house and those two women who were coming up. And the reason why we don't have all of the names of the victims as of this recording, surviving family members are still being notified at this point in time. But the only indication we have from police is, They don't have a motive. They suggested mental health could be a factor. Obviously, it would have to be, would it not?
00:07:29
Speaker 1: Rosewood, again, how many of these familicides we cover? None of these guys have a history of mental illness. We have covered one in Louisiana. In fact, they did. But Robes, we several times in these instances were very upstanding members of the community, guys who had good jobs. Who knows? We don't know what the circumstances are here. But Robes, anybody who would do this, I would suggest, has to have some kind of mental illness or some problem. But why are we seeing so damn many of these?
00:07:56
Speaker 3: I don't know.
00:07:56
Speaker 2: And look, a lot of these fit a familiar pattern. But what was interesting about this case is 5 o'clock on a Fridayâ We see a lot of these planned overnight. Wait until everybody in the house is sleeping. Therefore, you won't have anyone who's able to fight back. The man of the house plans this out meticulously while everyone's sleeping, goes into each bedroom. You oftentimes find these victims in their bedrooms. because that's how they're able to carry out this many homicides at one point, and then they kill themselves. This one is just so different, because middle of the afternoon on a Friday, and to know that people were rushing to the scene, and he was almost ready for them, it seems, to be banging on the door, but opening and just knowing he was going to kill them first.
00:08:46
Speaker 1: Well, to have right, those were her two kids, the mom, the pregnant mom.
00:08:52
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:08:52
Speaker 2: So according to the father of the one-year-old, the daughter who was killed, the one-year-old was his daughter that he shared with her. And then she had another son who was five and then had a baby on the way. So that's how we're getting any of that information. Also that the non-relative was her friend, like her friend was with her.
00:09:15
Speaker 1: That's an awful... She's banging on a door and her kids are dead on the other side of that door, it sounds like.
00:09:21
Speaker 3: It's horrific.
00:09:23
Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
00:09:24
Speaker 3: And this is the actual quote from the police chief.
00:09:29
Speaker 2: Out of respect for the victims and the families, I will not discuss the details of what our officers encountered inside that home. But I want our community to understand the gravity of what happened there. and the profound impact this tragedy has had on those involved and on our community as a whole. When we come back, we're going to talk about what neighbors, friends, what people have said about this family, and unfortunately, it falls right in line with all of these recent familicides we've seen a certain uptick in this summer and this year. Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ. We are talking about another familicide, another mass shooting where nine people were killed. 10 are dead. The killer turned the gun on himself. And we say nine because yes, there were eight people, but a pregnant woman, it's believed to be his own daughter who was pregnant with his grandchild due to be born within days. This is an awful situation and And we mentioned Erie cops don't have a motive yet. They've suggested that mental health might be a part of this. But family members and neighbors and friends have been speaking out from someone who's known this family for more than 30 years.
00:10:55
Speaker 3: Listen to these quotes, babe. They said that the shooter, the. the grandfather, the father was, quote.
00:11:01
Speaker 2: A good guy. And then he started going downhill with everything. They were a lovely family. Who would have thought this would ever happen? The father of the toddler who was killed, so he knew the grandfather obviously very well, described him as every day smiling and being just, you would think like nothing like this could possibly happen. So they're all describing him as not distressed, nothing out of the ordinary, a good guy, a nice guy, a family guy, the patriarch of his family. Literally, that's how people are describing him. People have known this family. They have been in this eerie Pennsylvania community for 30 years, and people are shocked about what happened and how it could have happened.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: That doesn't make sense, babe. And we've heard that, like you said, familiar patterns. In many of these deadly, you cannot know one Folks are, obviously, this is a shocking crime, but folks can't come up with any hints sometime that there was trouble in some of these families before stuff happens, babe.
00:12:08
Speaker 3: It's jaw-dropping.
00:12:09
Speaker 2: People are, in the Pennsylvania area at least, bringing up a 1982 massacre in Wilkes-Barre.
00:12:15
Speaker 3: That's about four hours from here.
00:12:17
Speaker 2: Apparently, this is one of the worst mass murders in American history at the time. But you think about where we are now, and it just falls in line. George Banks, he killed 13 people. Five of them were his own children. Four of them were his children's mothers. It was just this horrific... unthinkable, one-of-a-kind massacre in 1982. He actually just died last November, so he made news again. So I think he's on people's minds. But to think that that was this big standalone, standout, horrific crime back in 1982, that's how far you had to go back to think about the last time there was a mass familicide in this area in Pennsylvania. But if you just look this year, and we have been covering it, we've been covering them, unfortunately, ad nauseum. We just had one last week in New Jersey where this doctorate, he had his doctorate from Quinnipiac University School of Law, a lawyer, a senior vice president at an insurance company, killing himself, his wife, their 24-year-old daughter who was about to get her master's degree. Then in Oregon, Benjamin Parker killing.
00:13:21
Speaker 3: One, two, three, four, five members of his family.
00:13:24
Speaker 2: We have case after case after case, babe, that's just been so disturbing.
00:13:31
Speaker 1: And I don't know this, Robes, case after case after case, and we often don't get a lot of follow-up and a lot of answers and explanation because the killer is dead. The case is closed. We don't get a trial where questions get asked about mental health and signs. So, Robes, what do we do with these? Is enough study and attention being paid attention to something now that is taking more lives in the U.S., family members taking out their families, than school shootings? If we had this many school shootings, Roams, we'd be paying attention differently.
00:14:05
Speaker 3: We'd be paying attention.
00:14:06
Speaker 2: And maybe is it because other families aren't as involved? It's mostly insular. It's within a family. It's a horrific family tragedy where the entire family is gone.
00:14:19
Speaker 3: So the outrage is left to a.
00:14:22
Speaker 2: Few remaining family members, but you don't have the community necessarily at large with someone at large who's gone in and destroyed homes. multiple families it's just almost as if because it happened insularly that people just brush it under the carpet and say oh well they it doesn't affect us it doesn't it doesn't bother us it doesn't it didn't put anyone else.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: At risk you're right baby we move on this doesn't some it doesn't feel like a community tragedy maybe it happened at that one house but when it's a school when it's a an office right several dead from different communities different families that It impacts you differently. Maybe, Robes, but if, I don't know when we start paying attention and studying and figuring this out, but we are losing generations of families in shootings this year. Babe, I don't know what to do or how to do it. These cannot be one-off. And we keep saying, babe, the coverage of them, we're seeing more. We said this about school shootings. Aren't they inspiring other or putting this in people's Are people not getting this idea, babe, from seeing it happen so much? I don't know.
00:15:31
Speaker 2: I can't explain what this uptick is, but there certainly has been one in recent years, but it feels like this year is exceptional. April in Louisiana, we had this man shoot and kill eight kids, seven of them his own in Iowa. Ryan McFarland killed six family members in Florida in June. Ryan killed his wife and their daughters. The one in Michigan really stood out. He killed his wife and his six kids in Minnesota. We had the man stab his mother first and his wife and his seven-year-old daughter at the daycare.
00:16:04
Speaker 3: It just goes on and on and on. It was like.
00:16:07
Speaker 2: It's been happening at least once a month. And in some cases.
00:16:12
Speaker 3: In August, we had more than one in one month. And now here we are in October with another one. So this is just beyond disturbing.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: And it's important that we do get some answers into the whys. I know that those are the hardest ones to get sometimes, but we're awaiting more information from Erie police as they do try to investigate what went wrong. But like you said- when everyone in the family is gone, there aren't a lot of people left beating the drum, asking for those answers.
00:16:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, what investigation? The case is open and it's closed.
00:16:47
Speaker 3: There's no trial.
00:16:49
Speaker 1: Who's looking into this history and investigating? People at least don't have resources to dedicate to a crime that's over.
00:16:55
Speaker 3: That's already been solved.
00:16:57
Speaker 1: This happened. We know who did it. We have other things to do. And I understand that, but this is becoming a little bit of a, A what? Beyond just, this is a phenomenon now that's taking place, at least this year. Is it a one-off? I don't know. And do we not cover it? Or a lot of folks, we don't like to cover it or talk about it that much because it's ugly. Babe, somebody want to hear this morning on morning TV that a granddad killed his two grandkids and they were one and five?
00:17:25
Speaker 2: And his pregnant daughter and other members of his family know that people don't want to digest that along with their Cheerios.
00:17:32
Speaker 1: It's one off and we move on.
00:17:34
Speaker 2: So we don't want to talk about it. But not talking about it is very, very dangerous. And look, mental health needs to become a better and bigger focus. We talk about it all the time, but what are we actually doing about it? This hopefully, I don't know, I just hope it at least shakes some people up enough to start examining it. not only their own lives, but people around them and make sure people get the help they need. It is out there. It's just, I don't think people know where to turn. Unfortunately, we always appreciate you listening to us, everyone. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes.
00:18:05
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you soon.