24 April,2016 08:59 AM IST | | Agencies
Victims, all adults and one juvenile, shot in the head. Babies — aged four days, six months and three years, survive
Washington: Eight members of one family, including a teenager, were shot dead in rural Ohio, yesterday. Seven bodies were found at three houses close to each other and an eighth was later found at a separate site.
An aerial shot of one of the locations in Pike County, Ohio, where the crime took place. Pic/AP
The victims were "all adults except for a male juvenile" who was 16 years old, and all members of a single family. Two babies - one aged four days, the other six months - and a three-year-old child survived the shootings, Sheriff Charles Reader said.
With at least one suspected gunman still on the loose, no arrests have been made. "Each one of the victims appears to have been executed, each one of the victims appears to have been shot in the head," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said. "None of the individuals committed suicide," he added, saying the shooter or shooters "are still at large."
Several victims were in bed when they were shot.
Earlier, DeWine and Reader said in a joint statement that the first seven victims had been found "in three Union Hill Road homes in Pike County," a rural community about 80 miles east of Cincinnati. There was no "active shooter," they said. Schools in Pike County and surrounding areas were earlier placed on lockdown as a precautionary measure.
Meanwhile, five people were found dead in northern Georgia, in two separate incidents believed to be a domestic dispute. Local coroner Vernon Collins said five people were dead in two shootings that are possibly connected.
