On the morning of Easter Sunday, before the sun rose over Shreveport, Louisiana, a 13-year-old boy jumped off a rooftop trying to escape his own father.
He survived. Eight children did not.
In what authorities are now calling the deadliest mass shooting in the United States in more than two years, 31-year-old Shamar Elkins fatally shot his seven children and a cousin, and critically wounded two women, in a rampage across at least two locations before sunrise on April 19, 2026. CNN

The Names the Country Needs to Know
The children were killed in what police described as an “execution-style” shooting. They included five girls and three boys, ranging in age from 3 to 11. Their mothers identified them as Jayla Elkins, 3; Shayla Elkins, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; Sariahh Snow, 11; Khedarrion Snow, 6; and Braylon Snow, 5. CBS News
They were not statistics. They were siblings who shared bedrooms, cousins who played together. They had no warning.

What Happened in the Early Morning Hours
Police believe Elkins first shot his wife at a residence on Harrison Street. He then went to another home on West 79th Street, where he shot the eight children and another woman — the mother of the eighth child killed. CNN
A neighbor’s security camera captured Elkins fleeing on foot. Around 6:00 a.m., officers responded to a domestic disturbance call, but Elkins had already fled. He hijacked a vehicle at gunpoint and Shreveport Police pursued him in a high-speed chase into Bossier City, where gunfire was exchanged and he was shot and killed. Wikipedia
The 13-year-old boy who jumped off the building’s roof is expected to recover, suffering some broken bones. CNN He is the only child who made it out.

The Warning Signs That Came Too Late
In the weeks before the massacre, Elkins had told his stepfather, Marcus Jackson, that he was drowning in dark thoughts. On Easter Sunday — the morning of the attack — he called his mother and stepfather. He said he wanted a divorce. He said he wanted to end his life.
“I told him, ‘You can beat stuff, man. I don’t care what you’re going through, you can beat it,'” Jackson told the New York Times. “Then I remember him telling me: ‘Some people don’t come back from their demons.'”
Those were among the last words Jackson heard from his stepson.
According to a family member, Elkins and his wife were in the middle of a separation and had been arguing about it before the shooting. They were due in court the following day — Monday, April 20. Time

What We Know

Eight children, ages 3 to 11, were killed. Two women — Elkins’ wife and another woman — suffered critical gunshot wounds. CNN
Shamar Elkins served in the Louisiana Army National Guard from 2013 to 2020 as a signal support specialist. He was never deployed and left the Army as a private. Fox News
In 2019, Elkins pleaded guilty to an illegal weapons charge and was placed on 18 months’ probation. Wikipedia
The shooting is the deadliest in the U.S. since January 2024, when eight people were killed in a Chicago suburb. CBS News
The eight victims represent the 8th through 15th homicides in Shreveport so far this year. KSLA

A City — and a Country — Shattered
The numbers hit hardest when a local official put them plainly. Shreveport Councilman Grayson Boucher said: “Over 30% of our crimes and 30% of our murders in the city of Shreveport are domestic in relation. Now that number has gone up. We more than doubled our homicides in the city of Shreveport because of one act of domestic violence.” CBS News
Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who founded a gun-violence prevention organization after she was severely wounded in a mass shooting in 2011, said: “This is a devastating act of domestic gun violence, taking the lives of eight young children.” CBS News She called on Americans to be “outraged that we live in a country that routinely subjects our kids to such unimaginable violence.”
Caddo Parish District Attorney’s office released a statement that read in part: “Domestic violence is not a private matter. It is a community issue with far-reaching consequences, often affecting the most vulnerable among us — our children.” KSLA

Why This Matters Beyond Shreveport
This story will hit every American parent the same way: these children were asleep. It was Easter Sunday. Someone who was supposed to protect them chose to end them instead.
The warning signs were there — the dark talk, the “demons,” the impending divorce hearing. The system had encountered Elkins before. None of it was enough.
Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux urged the community to confront “the deeper issues — violence in the home, untreated trauma, and the silence that allows both to grow.” CNN
Eight children will never grow up. And a stepfather in Louisiana is left holding the memory of a phone call he didn’t know would be the last — and words he couldn’t have known were a goodbye.