Louisiana father’s Easter post showed his kids smiling. Two weeks later he murdered seven of them in a shooting spree
An inconceivable tragedy.
A Louisiana father shot and killed seven of his own children and a cousin in a violent rampage that has left the city of Shreveport reeling. The attack, which also critically wounded his wife and another woman, is being called the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. in over two years. The chaos unfolded on April 19 when police received a frantic call from someone on the roof of a home on West 79th Street.
According to CNN, the caller reported that Shamar Elkins, 31, had just shot someone inside the house. Minutes later, the caller, identified as a family member, told dispatch that Elkins had opened fire on everyone in the home. By 6:01 a.m., officers arrived to find a scene of horror. Some of the children had tried to escape through the back door, leaving behind bullet holes as evidence of their desperate attempt to flee.
The police then received another call about a shooting on Harrison Street, where a woman reported that her boyfriend Elkins had shot her, taken her three children, and fled. By 6:10 a.m., authorities realized the two incidents were connected. Elkins, armed with a firearm, then carjacked a vehicle and led police on a chase into Bossier Parish. At 6:29 a.m., officers shot and killed him. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:03 a.m.
The victims of the horrific crime were all young children
The youngest was three-year-old Jayla Elkins. Apart from Jayla, Shayla Elkins, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; Sariahh Snow, 11; Khedarrion Snow, 6; and Braylon Snow, 5, were killed. Elkins’ wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, 34, suffered life-threatening injuries, as did another woman whose name hasn’t been released. A 13-year-old boy who jumped from the roof to escape broke several bones but is expected to recover.
The community has been left shattered by the scale of the tragedy. A memorial of flowers, balloons, and stuffed animals now stands outside the family’s home, where neighbors and strangers alike have gathered to pay their respects.
Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux said, “Our community is grieving the unimaginable loss of innocent children. There are no words that can make sense of it, and no distance that shields us from it.” He added that the tragedy should serve as a wake-up call about the dangers of untreated trauma and domestic violence.
The shooting has more than doubled the number of homicides in Shreveport and Caddo Parish this year, according to the coroner’s office. Investigators are still piecing together what led to the attack, but family members have described a rocky marriage and mounting tension between Elkins and his wife. The couple had been arguing prior to the shooting, and Elkins had reportedly expressed feelings of despair to his parents.
His stepfather, Marcus Jackson, said Elkins had been struggling with “dark thoughts” and had recently told him, “Some people don’t come back from their demons.” Jackson said he tried to reassure his stepson, telling him, “You can beat stuff, man. I don’t care what you’re going through, you can beat it.”
Elkins’ social media activity leading up to the shooting has also drawn scrutiny
On April 5, he posted a photo of himself with his children on Facebook, captioning it with a note about attending an Easter church service with them for the first time. Four days later, he shared an inspirational prayer from another Facebook page that read, “Dear God, Today I ask You to help me guard my mind and my emotions.” The prayer went on to ask for strength to “reject” depression, anger, anxiety, and panic.
Neighbors and friends have struggled to reconcile the man they knew with the violence he unleashed. Freddie Montgomery, who lives across the street from the family, said he saw Elkins sitting on his porch the day before the fatal shooting as the children played in the yard. Montgomery waved, and Elkins waved back. “What type of father would do this to his children?” he asked.
Elkins had a history of run-ins with the law. Court records show two prior criminal convictions, including a 2019 arrest for illegal use of weapons and carrying a firearm on school property. Then, an officer said that Elkins pulled a 9-millimeter handgun from his pants and fired five shots at a vehicle after the driver pulled a gun on him. The shooting happened near a schoolyard where children were playing. He was also arrested in 2016 for driving while intoxicated.
Elkins had served in the Louisiana Army National Guard as a signal support system specialist and fire support specialist but was never deployed. He left the Army in 2020 as a private.
The shooting has reignited conversations about domestic violence and mental health
City Councilmember Tabatha Taylor broke down in tears during a news conference, calling the attack “the result when someone snaps.” She urged the community to take mental health challenges seriously, saying, “This is not a freaking joke! This is real.”
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said investigators would look for signs that Elkins had been spiraling. “I think the work to be done now is to go back and try to see those signs that were there for family members, for likely his spouse, for friends, for others,” he said. The attack is the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. since January 2024, when a 23-year-old man killed eight people, most of them his relatives, in a Chicago suburb.
(Featured image: Lorie Shaull)
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