SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Eight family members, five of them children, were found dead Wednesday of gunshot wounds in a southern Utah home, according to authorities who did not provide further details or a possible motive for the killings .
The victims were found when police conducted a social check at the residence, according to a statement from officials in Enoch, a small town of about 8,000 people located 245 miles (394 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City.
Police said they found no threat to the public.
Ben B. Braun/The Deseret News via AP
Enoch City Manager Rob Dotson said the community was shaken by the news of the eight bodies and that the dead – all members of the same family – were well known in the southern Utah city.
“Many of us served with them in the church, in the community, and went to school with these people,” Dotson said in a video statement Wednesday night.
“This community is suffering right now. They feel loss, they feel grief and they have a lot of questions,” Dotson added, noting that officials plan to release more information as it becomes available and the police investigation progresses.
“We will not know the mindset, the thoughts of the people who lived through this tragedy, but we can all pray that their families, neighbors and everyone will come to understand what happened in this place, probably in a day or two. , or maybe more,” Dotson said, choking up at one point.
Social checks based on calls to the police department, such as the one that led them to the residence where the bodies were found, are routine when people are not seen for long periods of time, Dotson said.
Ben B. Braun/The Deseret News via AP
The five children attended schools in the Iron County School District, officials said in a letter sent to parents.
Enoch, off Interstate 15 in rural Utah north of Cedar City and about 80 miles (128 kilometers) west of Bryce Canyon National Park, experienced severe flooding in 2021 that damaged hundreds of homes.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox offered his condolences in a tweet Wednesday night.
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