Shamar Elkins told his family he was struggling with personal “demons” in the weeks before he shot and killed eight children, seven of whom were his own, in Shreveport, Louisiana on Sunday, his stepfather said.
Elkins told his mother and stepfather during an Easter phone call about dealing with “dark thoughts” as he went through a separation from his wife, Shaneiqua Pugh.
“I told him, ‘You can beat stuff, man. I don’t care what you’re going through, you can beat it,’” Marcus Jackson, Elkins’ stepfather, told The New York Times. “Then I remember him telling me: ‘Some people don’t come back from their demons.’”
Police said Elkins targeted Ms. Pugh and his girlfriend in the Shreveport shooting. Both suffered life-threatening injuries in the attack that started around 6 a.m. Sunday.
He then walked about a block away to a home and fatally shot several of his children as they slept, authorities said. One child was shot and killed while fleeing on a roof.
Elkins, 31, carjacked a driver and sped away before police fatally shot him during the pursuit that went into neighboring Bossier City.
“I just don’t know what to say. My heart is just taken aback,” Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said Sunday during a press conference. “I just cannot begin to imagine how such an event can occur.”
Police said the slain children ranged in age from 3 to 11 years old. Officials previously said they were between 1 and 14 years old.
Elkins was the father of seven of the children who were killed. The eighth victim was a cousin of his children.
One child, a 13-year-old boy, managed to escape the violence, but broke his leg while jumping from a roof.
Family members identified the children 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.
An Army spokesperson said Elkins served in the Louisiana Army National Guard between 2013 and 2020. He worked as a signal support system specialist and a fire support specialist, but was never deployed.
Elkins left the National Guard with the rank of private and got a job with UPS.
Caddo Parish court records show Elkins had two criminal convictions: He was convicted of driving while intoxicated in 2016 and of an illegal gun charge and carrying a firearm on school property in 2019.
An arrest report from the 2019 incident said Elkins fired five shots at a vehicle after the driver had pulled a handgun on him first. The shooting occurred near a schoolyard where children were playing. One of the bullets was found near school property.
