Nationwide
The victims have been discovered Wednesday when police did a welfare test on the residence.
A legislation enforcement officer stands close to the entrance door of the Enoch, Utah residence the place eight members of the family have been discovered useless of gunshot wounds, Wednesday, January 4, 2023. Ben B. Braun/The Deseret Information through AP
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Eight members of a household, 5 of them youngsters, have been discovered useless of gunshot wounds in a southern Utah residence, in line with authorities, who didn’t present additional particulars or a doable motive for the killings.
The victims have been discovered Wednesday when police performed a welfare test on the residence, in line with an announcement from metropolis officers in Enoch, a small city of about 8,000 folks situated 245 miles (394 kilometers) south of Salt Lake Metropolis. .
Police mentioned they didn’t detect any threats to the general public.
Enoch Metropolis Supervisor Rob Dotson mentioned the group was reeling from the information of the eight our bodies and that the deceased, all members of 1 household, have been well-known within the southern Utah metropolis.
“Many people have served with them in church, in the neighborhood, and gone to high school with these folks,” Dotson mentioned in a video assertion Wednesday evening.
“This group proper now’s struggling. They really feel misplaced, they’re in ache and so they have a number of questions,” Dotson added, noting that officers deliberate to launch extra data because it turns into out there and the police investigation progresses.
“We can’t know the mindset, the ideas of the individuals who skilled this tragedy, however we will all pray that their households and neighbors and everybody comes to grasp what occurred on this place, in all probability in a day or two. , or possibly extra,” Dotson mentioned, a lump in her throat at one level.
Wellness checks primarily based on calls to the police division just like the one which led them to the residence the place the our bodies have been discovered are routine when persons are not seen for lengthy durations of time, Dotson mentioned.
All 5 youngsters attended faculties within the Iron County Faculty District, authorities mentioned in a letter despatched to oldsters.
Enoch, off Interstate 15 in rural Utah simply north of Cedar Metropolis and about 80 miles (128 kilometers) west of Bryce Canyon Nationwide Park, skilled intensive flooding in 2021 that prompted harm to lots of of houses.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox supplied his condolences in a tweet Wednesday evening.