Father Kills 8 Children in Shreveport Domestic Shooting

Eight young lives ended before most families had started their Sunday coffee. Seven of them belonged to the man who pulled the trigger. In the predawn hours of April 20, 2026, Shamar Elkins, 31, killed seven of his own children and one cousin in a domestic shooting that began at one home and continued at another in Shreveport, Louisiana. Two women — one the children's mother — survived with critical gunshot wounds. A ninth child escaped by jumping from the roof.

The attack, which police labeled a domestic disturbance tied to an impending divorce, unfolded across multiple locations starting shortly before 6 a.m. According to Shreveport Police Department spokesperson Chris Bordelon, Elkins first shot a woman at one residence before driving to a second where the children were located. Seven children were found dead inside the home. The eighth was discovered on the roof after an apparent escape attempt. Bordelon described the scene as "disgusting and evil," noting that many of the children appeared to have been shot in the head. A 13-year-old boy who jumped from the roof sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was hospitalized.

Elkins fled the scene in a stolen vehicle. Police pursued him into neighboring Bossier Parish, where officers fired on the vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities recovered a "rifle-style pistol" from him and have stated they believe he was the sole shooter.

The Caddo Parish Coroner's Office identified the victims 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. Seven were Elkins' children from two relationships. The eighth was their cousin. Crystal Brown, a cousin of one of the wounded women, told the Associated Press the children were "happy kids, very friendly, very sweet."

The incident occurred against a backdrop of marital strain. Family members told The New York Times that Elkins and his wife, from whom he was separating, had been due in court the following day. On Easter Sunday, Elkins called his mother, Mahelia Elkins, and stepfather, Marcus Jackson, in Oklahoma City. Through tears, with the sounds of his children playing in the background, he spoke of wanting to take his own life and being overwhelmed by "dark thoughts," according to their account to the Times. Jackson recalled urging him that "you can beat stuff" and Elkins replying that "some people don't come back from their demons." Mahelia Elkins told the Times she had reconnected with her son only in the last decade after a difficult early life marked by her own struggles with addiction; he had been largely raised by a family friend, Betty Walker, who described learning of the deaths as devastating.

Public records and military statements add layers to Elkins' history. He served in the Louisiana Army National Guard from 2013 to 2020 as a signal support systems specialist and fire support specialist but saw no deployments and was discharged as a private, according to an Army official who spoke with multiple outlets including USA Today. In 2019, he pleaded guilty to illegal discharge of a firearm after an incident in which he fired shots near Caddo Magnet High School, where children were present; he received 18 months of probation. Some outlets reported an additional 2016 conviction for driving while intoxicated, but that detail could not be independently verified in primary court records reviewed by other news organizations.

Elkins had also turned to social media in the weeks before the shooting. On April 9 he posted publicly about struggling with "depression, anger, and anxiety" amid the divorce stress, according to Newsweek reporting on the verified account. Days later he shared family Easter photos with a caption describing a "blessed day" at church with all his children. On Thursday before the attack, he messaged his mother that "everyone is doing OK" and exchanged expressions of love with her.

No official motive has been declared. Bordelon emphasized the event was "entirely a domestic incident." Police Chief Wayne Smith told reporters he was "taken aback" by the horror and could not imagine how such an event could occur. Mayor Tom Arceneaux called it "maybe the worst tragic situation we've ever had in Shreveport" and noted the pain rippling through families, first responders and the coroner's team. Governor Jeff Landry and his wife said they were "heartbroken over this horrific situation." U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who represents part of the Shreveport area, said he had spoken with Arceneaux and pledged assistance. "What apparently began as a domestic dispute this morning ended in a mass shooting," Johnson wrote on X.

The killings mark the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since January 2024, when eight people died in Joliet, Illinois, according to databases maintained by the Associated Press, USA Today, Northeastern University and the Gun Violence Archive. The Archive defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot, excluding the perpetrator; its criteria encompass both public and private incidents, a distinction that separates it from narrower federal definitions focused on public active shooter events. Shreveport officials, including city council members who held a public prayer at the scene, described the city of roughly 180,000 as collectively mourning. One neighbor, Mack London, 71, told NBC News that "nothing like this has ever happened on this street."

A quoted city councilman named Grayson Boucher claimed the shooting had more than doubled the city's homicide count for the year and that over 30 percent of local crimes and murders were domestic in nature. That specific attribution and the accompanying statistics could not be independently verified; no official by that name appears in current Shreveport city records, and police data cited in other reporting showed homicides trending downward earlier in 2025. Local faith leaders and grassroots organizers held prayer circles and described the district as still reeling.

The children's bodies were removed from the home in a scene described by another neighbor as "the worst thing I ever seen." Autopsies have been ordered. Counselors and mental health resources have been made available to the community. In the days since, the central unresolved question remains how signals of distress — a man's own reported statements about demons and dark thoughts, a public plea for help with his mental state, an impending court date over divorce — failed to prevent a father from destroying the very family he had recently described as blessed.