Man kills eight people in Erie, Pennsylvania home, then takes his own life

Police in Erie, Pennsylvania say a 45 year old man shot eight people to death inside a home on the city's east side Friday evening, then turned the gun on himself. The victims included a pregnant woman, a 5 year old boy and a 1 year old girl.

Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah said Saturday that the gunman was related to seven of the eight victims. The eighth was a friend of the pregnant woman. The shooter himself has not been publicly identified.

The killing began shortly before 5 p.m. Friday, according to evidence recovered by investigators. Audio and video from the scene captured muffled gunshots from inside the house on Perry Street, followed by two women arriving in visible distress and pounding on the front door. The gunman came outside and shot both women as they ran toward him, then went back inside.

Officers arriving minutes later, alerted by the city's ShotSpotter gunfire detection system, found the two women dead outside the home. After sending in a drone and a robot, SWAT officers entered and found the rest of the dead: the 5 year old boy and the 1 year old girl on the first floor, two more women and two young men in a stairwell, and the shooter on the second floor dead of what police called an apparent self inflicted wound.

Lorah declined to describe what officers encountered inside, saying only that the scene would stay with them. He said investigators would interview surviving relatives and examine the cellphones of the two women killed outside the house. They knew something was going on at that house, he said. We have to figure out what that is.

No motive has been established. Erie Mayor Daria Devlin praised officers for carrying out their duties with courage under what she called unimaginable circumstances. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said he had spoken with the mayor and offered the state's support.

The shooting is among the deadliest mass killings in Pennsylvania in recent years. Eight of the nine people who died in the house were members of one extended family.