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BILLINGS, Mont. -- A man killed eight of his relatives, including four children, as they gathered for Sunday dinner at a home in Billings, Montana, just weeks after his parents forced him to move out, a family member told The Associated Press.
Brad Ireland, whose former wife and two children were among the dead, identified the shooter as 44-year-old Alan Smith. Smith's parents, who were also killed, had asked him to move out, but he returned on Sunday and opened fire, Ireland said.
The victims represented four generations of the blended family, ranging from a great-grandmother in her 90s who used a wheelchair to a 7-year-old girl, according to Jennifer Mercer, a neighbor and family friend who set up an online fundraiser to help cover funeral costs and other expenses, and was authorized to release these details.
Gunshots followed by an inferno
Police said they responded to the home on Sunday evening and heard gunshots coming from out back, just before the house was completely engulfed in flames. Investigators confirmed Tuesday there were eight victims, including four children, and that the suspect had suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound and later died.
The investigation has been complicated by concerns about the structural integrity of the house after the fire burned it to its foundation, said Jeff Stovall, a spokesperson for the Billings Police Department.
Firefighters fought the blaze until around 1 a.m., according to Billings Fire Chief Matt Hoppel. The subdivision where the home was located was outside of municipal limits and not required to have fire hydrants.
Efforts to fight the fire were delayed until the site was secure, allowing the blaze to tear through the home.
12-year-old calls 911
Among those killed were Ireland's ex-wife, Megan Ghekiere, and their two children, Owen Ireland, 13, and Chloe Ireland, 7. Also killed were Ghekiere's two stepchildren with her current husband: Landon Ghekiere, 15, and Charlotte Ghekiere, 12.
"The one thing we do know is that Charlotte was the hero," Mercer said. "Charlotte called 911 and she tried to save her family. And that's something the family does want out there."
She described the family as "very loving and close," and said the children all got along and that their parents remained amicable even after divorcing.
"I feel like our entire community is devastated, even people that never knew any of them," Mercer said.
The family relocated from Seattle
The Smith family was originally from the Seattle area. Ireland said that after he and Megan Ghekiere divorced six years ago, she moved to Montana with their children. That's where she met the man who would become her second husband, who was not at the home when the shooting occurred.
Her parents, Dana and Barb Smith, soon followed, buying a house in Billings near their daughter's home. Evelyn Smith, Dana's elderly mother, lived in a nearby retirement community, Ireland said.
Alan Smith moved in with his parents in Montana and stayed with them for years before being asked to move out a couple weeks ago, Ireland said. He unexpectedly returned to the home on Sunday evening, when the Smiths had gathered for a weekly family dinner.
Ireland said Alan Smith killed his grandmother, his parents, his younger sister and the four children before setting the house on fire. He tried to flee before being confronted by law enforcement, he said.
Suspect was a 'hermit,' relative says
"There were many red flags and many people spoke out," said Ireland, who lives in Arizona. "No one listened."
Alan Smith was a "hermit" who spent most of his days in his room on his computer, Ireland said.
"No one knew what he did in there 24/7," he said.
Alan Smith had attended Eastern Washington University but had been unable to find or hold a job. A search of criminal records in Montana and Washington found no record Alan Smith had ever been arrested or charged with a crime.
Ireland said that to his knowledge Alan Smith had never been violent, though he could be verbally abusive.
22nd mass killing this year
The shootings were the 22nd mass killing this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
Fifteen of those have stemmed from domestic disputes, which is higher than the average of about 50% of U.S. mass killings, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University who manages the database.
The Montana shooting is the deadliest in the U.S. since April, when a Louisiana father fatally shot eight children, including seven of his own, and shot and wounded his wife and another woman.
Federal judge rejects Ghislaine Maxwell's 'miscarriage of justice' claims and bid for prison release
NEW YORK -- Ghislaine Maxwell's bid to overturn her sex trafficking conviction and be freed from prison was rejected by a federal judge Tuesday who said the claims by Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend and longtime associate that new evidence had emerged were "demonstrably meritless."
Maxwell filed a habeas petition last December seeking to set aside her conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence, claiming exonerating information was withheld and false testimony presented at her trial, resulting in a "complete miscarriage of justice."
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer rejected her arguments, saying in his written ruling they "all or almost all are frivolous" and that she had presented nothing that could upend the outcome of her trial.
"Nearly all its claims are procedurally barred; the overwhelming testimonial and documentary evidence adduced at trial conclusively established her guilt; and her petition's claims are demonstrably meritless, and generally based on speculation, distortions, and/or outright falsehoods," Engelmayer wrote.
A request for comment was sent to lawyers who represented Maxwell in the past.
Habeas petitions are often filed as a last resort and to protect against unlawful confinement after appeals are exhausted, as happened after Maxwell's conviction and sentencing.
Epstein, a millionaire financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. Ordered detained until trial, he was found dead in his cell at a New York federal jail in August 2019 and his death was ruled a suicide.
Maxwell, a British socialite, was arrested a year later and was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021. She was moved from a Florida prison to a prison camp in Texas last year, shortly after she was interviewed by the Justice Department's then second-in-command, Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump's former criminal defense attorney and now U.S. attorney general.
The judge noted that many of Maxwell's claims of "new evidence" stem from documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
As a result of that law, the Justice Department over the last eight months has released 18 categories of investigative materials gathered in the massive sex trafficking probe, including search warrants, financial records, notes from interviews with victims and data from electronic devices.
Engelmayer said that material is "largely irrelevant to the charges against Maxwell and does not support her claims of error."
"On the contrary, to the extent it is relevant, far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness of the legal rulings Maxwell challenges," he wrote.
The judge also rejected Maxwell's claim that she was selectively prosecuted and made a "scapegoat" when the Justice Department did not indict four co-conspirators named in a government document or 25 men who settled with victims.
Engelmayer said she could have raised that claim on appeal after her trial, but he found it to be frivolous nonetheless.
Among the recently released Justice Department documents, "she does not cite any that reveals the existence of an uncharged confederate, let alone one as instrumental as she in facilitating Epstein's horrific crimes," the judge said.
Secret Service confirms awareness of Iranian state media video threatening Barron Trump's life
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Secret Service has confirmed it is aware that Iranian state media has aired a video that appears to threaten the life of Barron Trump, President Donald Trump's youngest son.
"The U.S. Secret Service is aware of the video and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward our protectees," Secret Service spokesman Nate Herring said in a statement. "Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence."
Since the U.S. assassination of Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian media have on multiple occasions circulated content threatening the president and family members. The assassination came at the start of the war in Iran that Trump launched alongside Israel.
CNN previously reported that the Secret Service had knowledge of the Barron Trump threat.