Two teenage minors shot six members of an extended family in an Illinois town over the weekend, killing four.
Illinois State Police said one of the teens is related to the victims.
The shootings took place at three locations Saturday and Sunday in East St. Louis, Illinois, just over a mile east of St. Louis, Missouri, across the Mississippi River.
Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said at a news conference that the attacks were targeted.
One of the teens accused in the killings is a 15-year-old girl. The other has been identified in court records as Ja’ymeir Davis, 16. The St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s Office said it requested the girl’s case be transferred to adult court, according to St. Louis’ KMOV.
The two were arrested in a state park on Sunday following the alleged attacks, Mr. Kelly said. He identified the victims who died over the weekend as Patricia May, 74; Devin May, 24; Shania Thompson, 25; and Quentin Thompson, 21.
Illinois State Police said a fifth victim, Cherie May, 49, died sometime between July 5 and 7, according to court documents cited by KMOV. The discovery of her body this past weekend led to the investigation of all the other victims.
Marcus May, 40, the father of the 15-year-old girl who has not been publicly named, spoke to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and identified the eldest Ms. May as his mother, the younger Ms. May as his sister, Mr. May as his nephew and Mr. and Ms. Thompson as his stepchildren.
“I lost my whole family in one fell swoop,” Mr. May told the newspaper.
The 15-year-old girl’s mother, Tiffany Thompson, survived after being shot in the neck, while her niece Santosha Scott survived after being shot in the back.
Ms. Scott’s husband, Lamarion Smiley, told St. Louis’ KSDK that the attacks happened because the two teenage suspects wanted to be together.
“She ran away with this boy numerous times. Stayed in vacant houses with this boy, and every time we found her and brought her back home, we let her know, like, ’You’re 15, you don’t know what love truly is yet.’ … They wanted to eliminate everybody that had a problem with the situation,” Mr. Smiley said.
In addition to the shootings, Mr. Davis is accused of cutting off the 74-year-old victim’s thumb, hijacking a 2015 Chevy Traverse and using a stolen gun, according to KMOV.
He is being charged as an adult with five counts of murder, one count of dismembering a human body, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of aggravated battery, one count of aggravated vehicular hijacking and one count of unlawful use of a stolen firearm, according to court records.
