A 48-year-old man has been arrested an charged in connection with the deaths of eight members of a Texas family who were shot dead in their home at the weekend.
The dead included six children.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office said the suspect, David Conley III surrendered to the authorities at the family's home and was charged with killing Valerie Jackson, her husband and their six children, two girls and four boys who ranged in age from 6 to 13.
Conley, a felon with a violent history, was being held on three counts of capital murder, including one for a person at or under the age of 6, and an assault charge, according to the sheriff department’s online records.
At a news conference on Sunday, chief deputy Tim W Cannon said the authorities had not uncovered a motive for the shooting. "We do not and cannot understand the motivations of an individual who would take the lives of so many people, including children," he said.
Cannon said one of Jackson’s relatives called deputies around 9pm on Saturday to ask for a welfare check at the home, on the 2200 block of Falling Oaks Road in north Houston.
After making several attempts to contact someone inside, a supervisor looked up Conley’s record and found that he had an outstanding warrant.
It was unclear how the deputies knew Conley was inside the home, but Cannon said the supervisor followed department protocol and summoned the High Risk Operations Unit.
While waiting for the unit to arrive, the deputies saw the body of a child through a window and decided to move in, he said. The supervisor and three deputies then forced their way into the home, but pulled back after the man began shooting, he said.
After hours of talks with the unit's hostage negotiation team, Conley surrendered. "Tragically, it was too late to save the lives that were lost last evening," Cannon said Sgt Craig Clopton, the lead homicide investigator, said sheriff's deputies who entered the home found the victims spread out in the house's three bedrooms.
Officials did not know how long they had been dead. Some of the victims were shot multiple times, Clopton said.
The Sheriff's Office identified the victims as Valerie Jackson (40); her husband, Dwayne Jackson (50); Nathaniel Conley (13); Honesty Jackson (11); Dwayne Jackson Jr, (10), Caleb Jackson (9); Trinity Jackson (7); Jonah Jackson (6). Officials believe that Nathaniel is Conley's biological son with Valerie Jackson.
Sheriff’s deputies performed three welfare checks at the home Saturday, but they did not have enough information to legally force entry into the home, Clopton said. There was no active restraining order barring Conley from contact with Jackson and the family, he said.
The Jackson family lived on a tree-lined block of one- and two-story homes with pristine lawns near the Houston National Cemetery for veterans. The area is about 12 miles southwest of the George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Officials said Jackson had recently changed the locks at the home, but Conley was able to enter through an unlocked window, the police said.
The Houston Chronicle reported that Conley had a lengthy criminal record that included charges of beating Jackson, his then girlfriend, at the home where the bodies were found. Citing court documents, The Chronicle reported that Conley was arrested in July after the authorities said he slammed his girlfriend’s head into a refrigerator at the home.
He previously spent nine months in jail after a 2013 conviction for assaulting the same woman, who received an emergency protective order prohibiting him from contacting her, according to the report. Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said the agency's Child Protective Services had been involved with the family.
The independent Office of Child Safety is conducting a review that will pull together all information from past reports and contacts with the family to determine whether officials acted appropriately, he said.
Alan Cartagena (19) said he was attending a barbecue at a home a couple of houses away on Saturday when he heard at least one gunshot. About 11 p.m., he said, deputies started going around the neighborhood knocking on doors.
“Cops were walking around with their handguns out, telling people to remain in their houses,” he said. “It was extremely scary.”
NYT