Neighbors who witnessed the aftermath of the massacre of eight children in Shreveport, Louisiana are describing the "chaos" they heard and saw as a father fatally shot seven of his own children and one of their cousins early Sunday morning.
Police have identified the suspected gunman as Shamar Elkins, who fled law enforcement in a stolen car after carrying out the shooting. They said he died after officers chased him and opened fire.
Two witnesses, Jacob and Tiffany Castleman, told CBS affiliate KSLA they were shocked and horrified as "a full-blown shootout" took place outside their home. Tiffany said she woke her husband after hearing sirens and what she believed was possible gunfire.
"And then when I heard the barrage, I knew that there was a full-blown shootout, something going," she told the station. "Mind you, we had no clue the later incidents that happened, but I had just full terror."
Jacob said his first thought was "there's no way that that just happened behind our house."
"I was just in total shock. ... it was just chaos," he told KSLA . "I mean, honestly like, it was just nothing like I've ever experienced."
He told the station he remembered hearing more gunfire, seemingly "pretty close" to where he and his wife had been sleeping. Once outside, he said that he saw police officers with their guns drawn, shouting to the suspect to put his hands up and come out.
Liza Demming, a neighbor who lives two houses down from the residence where most victims were shot, told The Associated Press that her security camera captured video of the gunman running away and the sounds of two shots.
"That's pretty much all I saw, was him running out of the house and the cars leaving," she said.
Demming told AP that she later saw a child's covered body on the roof of the residence.
Community reacts
Lashuan Berry, who owns the daycare Valley of Hope Center for Kids and knew the suspect and his family, said Elkins seemed to have "no soul."
"You could see in his eyes, nothing behind the eyes. Dead behind the eyes," Berry told KSLA. "No soul. NPC, non-player character. He didn't have one."
The house where a mass shooting took place is seen in Shreveport, Louisiana, on April 19, 2026.
Gianrigo MARLETTA /AFP via Getty Images
But others in the community have said the tragic crime was unexpected.
Fred Montgomery, a neighbor who lives across the street from the home where the shooting happened, told CBS News he hadn't seen any signs the gunman would do something like this.
"The kids played in the yard every evening," Montgomery said. "Yesterday evening, he was sitting on the porch, I waved at him, he waved back, the children were in the yard ... and then this morning we woke up to all of this."
A friend of a relative of one of the victims, who asked for anonymity, told KSLA the suspect "basically went AWOL."
"We do not know what triggered him. We don't know what happened. But to do what he did to those kids should have never happened at all," the person said. "Every time I seen him, he was nothing but smiles and everything like that. I never dove into the backstory of it to figure out what was going on, but they never, ever showed any problems within the household."
Police said the gunman shot 10 people, including two women, one of whom was his wife. A relative told AP that both were the mothers of the gunman's children, and he and his wife had been arguing about their separation ahead of a scheduled court appearance Monday.
The gunman initially shot one woman in the face during a domestic dispute that began at around 5 a.m., before traveling to a different residence in the area and shooting all of the eight people who were killed. Police described the shooting — the nation's deadliest in more than two years — as "execution-style," and said the gunman targeted victims as they tried to escape the home through a window.
According to the coroner's office, the mothers identified the children as: Jayla Elkins, age 3; Shayla Elkins, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; Sariahh Snow, 11; Khedarrion Snow, 6; and Braylon Snow, 5.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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