{"id":18843,"date":"2026-06-26T03:25:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T03:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetwistzone.com\/?p=18843"},"modified":"2026-06-26T03:25:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T03:25:51","slug":"a-31-year-old-dad-shot-and-killed-his-8-young-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetwistzone.com\/?p=18843","title":{"rendered":"A 31-year-old dad shot and killed his 8 young kids"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A 31-year-old father allegedly shot and killed his seven young children and their cousin on Sunday morning in Louisiana, in what has been described as one of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States in over two years.<\/strong>&nbsp;The youngest victim, Jayla, was 3 years old. The other children who died were&nbsp;<strong>Shayla Elkins<\/strong>&nbsp;(5),&nbsp;<strong>Kayla Pugh<\/strong>&nbsp;(6),&nbsp;<strong>Layla Pugh<\/strong>&nbsp;(7),&nbsp;<strong>Markaydon Pugh<\/strong>&nbsp;(10),&nbsp;<strong>Sariahh Snow<\/strong>&nbsp;(11),&nbsp;<strong>Khedarrion Snow<\/strong>&nbsp;(6), and&nbsp;<strong>Braylon Snow<\/strong>&nbsp;(5), according to the Caddo Parish Coroner\u2019s Office.Police say the suspect had recently told his wife, who was seriously injured in the shooting, that he wanted a divorce and was struggling with \u201cdark thoughts.\u201d A relative,&nbsp;<strong>Marcus Jackson<\/strong>, told local media he tried to encourage the suspect, recalling that the man said, \u201cSome people don\u2019t come back from their demons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Military Service and Criminal History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Authorities also said the suspect had served in the Louisiana Army National Guard as a signal support systems specialist and a fire support specialist. He left the military in 2020 at the rank of private and had not been deployed, according to an Army spokesperson. Court records indicate he had at least two prior criminal convictions, including weapons-related charges and a 2016 DUI arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 31-year-old father allegedly shot and killed his seven young children and their cousin on Sunday morning in Louisiana, in what has been described as one of the deadliest mass &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A 31-year-old dad shot and killed his 8 young kids - Thetwistzone<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thetwistzone.com\/?p=18843\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A 31-year-old dad shot and killed his 8 young kids - 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