{"id":222099,"date":"2026-08-27T00:09:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T00:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/she-tried-to-save-her-family-12-year-old-who-called-911-mourned-after-her-uncle-kills-eight-in-montana-mass-shooting-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T00:09:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T00:09:05","slug":"she-tried-to-save-her-family-12-year-old-who-called-911-mourned-after-her-uncle-kills-eight-in-montana-mass-shooting-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/she-tried-to-save-her-family-12-year-old-who-called-911-mourned-after-her-uncle-kills-eight-in-montana-mass-shooting-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018She tried to save her family\u2019: 12-year-old who called 911 mourned after her uncle kills eight in Montana mass shooting – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A man killed eight relatives, <\/a>including his sister and four children, at a family dinner in Montana weeks after his parents asked him to move out, authorities said Wednesday.
The attack unfolded early Sunday evening on White Star Circle just outside Billings at a home owned by victims Dana Smith, 73, and Barbara Smith, 72, officials said.
The homeowners were killed along with Megan Ireland-Ghekiere, 39, and her four children, Owen Ireland, 13; Chloe Ireland, 7; Landon Ghekiere, 15; and Charlotte Ghekiere, 12, authorities said.
Evelyn Smith, 92 \u2014 whom interim Yellowstone County Sheriff Kent O\u2019Donnell called the \u201cfamily matriarch\u201d \u2014 did not live at the home but was there Sunday for dinner. She was killed.
O\u2019Donnell identified the shooter as Alan Michael Smith, 44, saying he carried out a \u201cvery complex\u201d attack. He was found dead as authorities sought the killer.
Smith is the brother of victim Megan Ireland-Ghekiere and thus an uncle to all four of the younger victims, Billings police said.
Dana and Barbara Smith were the killer\u2019s parents and Evelyn Smith was his grandmother, according to police.
Smith had once lived in that house and had been asked to move out weeks earlier, Brad Ireland \u2014 Megan Ireland-Ghekiere\u2019s ex-husband \u2014 told The Associated Press.
O\u2019Donnell confirmed that Alan Smith had once lived at the house but wasn\u2019t residing there when the violence occurred Sunday.
\u201cThis is an ongoing criminal investigation with eight victims, making this very complex,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said.
The killings wiped out members from four generations, said Jennifer Mercer, a neighbor and family friend who set up an online fundraiser to help cover funeral costs and other expenses and was authorized to release the details.
Smith arrived at the home at about 5:49 p.m., and 11 minutes later neighbors believed they heard the sound of fireworks, officials said. That kind of noise, especially in the summer, wouldn\u2019t necessarily alarm anyone, O\u2019Donnell said.
But at 6:02 p.m., dispatchers received a call from a \u201cfemale\u201d voice inside the house, and Yellowstone County sheriff\u2019s deputies arrived at 6:10 p.m., officials said.
The children were all very close and everyone got along, with their parents remaining amicable even after having divorced, according to Mercer.
\u201cCharlotte was the hero that dialed 911,\u201d Mercer said told NBC News in a statement. \u201cShe tried to save her family. She lived by her favorite quote, \u2018I love you more.\u2019\u201d
When police officers and deputies arrived, they \u201cconfronted the suspect in the front yard, where he retreated into the house,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said.
More \u201cgunshots were heard within the household\u201d before the shooter went to the back of the property, O\u2019Donnell said.
At about 6:13 p.m., a deputy \u201cheard a final shot, which was broken away from the rest of the shots,\u201d according to O\u2019Donnell.
By about 6:22, police officers and sheriff\u2019s deputies \u201cmade entrance into the backyard,\u201d found a male victim there with a gunshot wound and began lifesaving measures on him, O\u2019Donnell said.
\u201cAt this time, it wasn\u2019t known that he was actually the suspect of all this,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cHe was just a person down, and law enforcement did what they\u2019re trained to do. They got him out of the hot zone and provided what first aid they could. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.\u201d
The blaze continued until about 1 a.m. Monday, Billings Fire Department Chief Matt Hoppel said.
Another complicating factor in the fire was that the house sat outside Billings city limits on county land where fire hydrants were not mandatory.
\u201cThey had to haul in truckloads of water, set up a temporary tank and pump out of that tank,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said. \u201cSo the fire suppression portion of this was very, very difficult.\u201d
The Smith family moved to Montana from the Seattle area.
When Megan Ghekiere and Ireland divorced six years ago, she moved to Montana with their children, her ex-husband said.
Megan Ghekiere would then meet Adam Ghekiere, who would become her second husband. He was working and not at the Smith home when gunfire erupted.
\u201cWe are so grateful for the prayers, the love, the support that we\u2019re getting from the nation,\u201d Ghekiere said.
The blended family appeared to be very close, emotionally and geographically, with Evelyn Smith, Dana\u2019s elderly mother, living in a nearby retirement home, Ireland said.
\u201cThey were nice,\u201d neighbor Donna Heisler, 67, told NBC News on Tuesday. \u201cI talked to Barbara, the wife, at a couple of garage sales.\u201d
Heisler said her neighbors appeared to enjoy their privacy.
\u201cThey kind of kept to themselves. Really weren\u2019t a very outgoing couple,\u201d Heisler said. \u201cThey weren\u2019t the socialites on the block, so you\u2019d see them once in a while, but they weren\u2019t overly outgoing.\u201d
She added: \u201cAnd coming from a bigger city maybe more the way they preferred to have it.\u201d
Ireland said Alan Smith had moved in with his parents in Montana and stayed with them for years before he was asked to leave a couple of weeks ago.
Ireland called Alan Smith a \u201chermit\u201d and said, \u201cNo one knew what he did in there 24\/7.\u201d
Smith\u2019s name was not connected to any criminal records in Montana and Washington.
\u201cWe had not been called to this residence before, and we had not had any prior contact with the suspect,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said.
Adam Ghekiere, who works at the airport in Billings, learned of the shootings over dispatch radio, and when he couldn\u2019t reach family on the phone, he raced to the crime scene.
Ghekiere\u2019s children weren\u2019t supposed to be there, he said, because family dinner was usually on Friday.
Ghekiere said police have confirmed to him that Charlotte was the one who dialed 911 from inside the house.
\u201cI keep hearing her \u2014 every time I would say, \u2018I love you,\u2019 she would say, \u2018I love you more,\u2019\u201d Ghekiere told the AP.
Senior Breaking News Reporter
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeA man killed eight relatives, including his sister and four children, at a family dinner in Montana weeks after his parents asked him to move out, authorities said Wednesday.The attack unfolded early Sunday evening on White Star Circle just outside Billings at a home owned by victims […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":222100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}