8 individuals discovered fatally shot in Utah house, together with 5 youngsters

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Eight members of the family, 5 of them youngsters, had been discovered useless from gunshot wounds in a southern Utah house Wednesday, in keeping with authorities who didn’t present extra particulars or a possible motive for the killings.

The victims had been discovered when police did a welfare verify on the residence, in keeping with a press release by metropolis officers in Enoch, a small city of about 8,000 individuals situated 245 miles (394 kilometers) south of Salt Lake Metropolis.

Police stated they didn’t detect any menace to the general public.

Enoch Metropolis Supervisor Rob Dotson stated the group was despatched reeling by information of the eight our bodies and that the deceased — all members of 1 household — had been well-known within the southern Utah city.

“Many people have served with them in church, locally and gone to highschool with these people,” Dotson stated in a video assertion Wednesday evening.

“This group right now is hurting. They’re feeling loss, they’re feeling ache and so they have a variety of questions,” Dotson added, noting that officers deliberate on releasing extra info because it turns into out there and the police investigation progresses.

“We gained’t know the mindsets, the ideas of the people who skilled this tragedy, however all of us can pray that their households and the neighbors and all will come to an understanding of what occurred on this place, in all probability in a day or two, or possibly longer,” stated Dotson, choking up at one level.

Welfare checks primarily based on calls to the police division just like the one which led them to the residence the place the our bodies had been discovered are routine when people will not be seen for prolonged intervals of time, Dotson stated.

The 5 youngsters attended colleges within the Iron County College District, officers stated in a letter despatched to folks.

Enoch, off Interstate 15 in rural Utah, simply north of the town of Cedar Metropolis and about 80 miles (128 kilometers) west of Bryce Canyon Nationwide Park, had main flooding in 2021 that brought about injury at a whole lot of properties.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox supplied condolences in a tweet Wednesday evening.