US Man Shoots His Family, Later Kills Himself After Wife Sought Divorce

A man from Utah shot his five children, mother-in-law and his wife and then killed himself two weeks after the woman had filed for divorce, according to authorities and public records.

Police also revealed during a Thursday news conference that officers investigated the 42-year-old man and his family a “couple of years prior,” suggesting possible earlier problems inside the household. Enoch Police Chief Jackson Ames did not elaborate.

Investigators were aware of the divorce petition but didn’t know if it was the motivation behind the killings, Mayor Geoffrey Chesnut said.

The killings rocked the small town of Enoch in southern Utah about halfway between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. It’s in one of the fastest-growing areas of the country, and communities of new homes on big lots are made up primarily of large families that belong, like most in Utah, to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church.

Many residents work and do business in nearby Cedar City, a city of about 35,000 that serves as a commercial hub for Enoch, which doesn’t have its own downtown.