A 42-year-old father apparently shot his wife and their four children before shooting himself in their West Valley City home, killing all but a 17-year-old son, police said.
The 17-year-old remained hospitalized Wednesday in critical condition, said Roxeanne Vainuku, a spokesperson for West Valley City police. She shared the updates during an afternoon news conference, one day after a call to police led to the discovery of five dead inside the house on the 3700 block of Oxford Way.
The shooting happened sometime over the weekend, Vainuku said. The names of the family members have not been released.
The father was found dead in a downstairs living room, with a handgun under his body, Vainuku said. The 11-year-old boy was also found dead in the living room.
In an upstairs room, two girls, ages 9 and 2, were found dead on the same bed as their 38-year-old mother.
The 17-year-old survivor was found in the garage, Vainuku said. He suffered a gunshot wound to the head. It did not appear that the teen was shot in the garage but managed to make his way there, she said.
Vainuku would not disclose details on how many rounds were fired. The teen has been unable to communicate because of his injuries, she noted, so police haven’t been able to ask him what happened.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Investigators search a home on Oxford Way in West Valley City, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. Police say five members of a family were found dead Tuesday afternoon, with another found injured.
Police were initially called to the house Monday, after a concerned relative of the woman who was killed requested a welfare check. Officers tried to contact the family with no response. The officers reported that they looked through the home’s windows and saw no obvious signs of an emergency or a crime.
When the woman didn’t show up for work Tuesday, the relative went to the house. She entered through the garage and found the 17-year-old. The relative then called police at about 2 p.m.
“This is far beyond anything routine,” Vainuku told reporters Tuesday night, as police continued to investigate the scene.
She said that, before these deaths, West Valley City had only seen four homicides in all of 2024, “so this more than doubles that number.”
Police had not been called to the home before and haven’t yet found anything that points to a motive for the shootings, Vainuku added Wednesday.
”We understand how frustrating it is for an incident of this magnitude to happen and to not understand why,” Vainuku said. “We know people want to know why. We want to know why. But the truth is we may never know.”
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) West Valley City deputy communications director Roxeanne Vainuku updates media outside the West Valley City police building, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. Police allege a father killed his wife, three of their children, and himself some time over the weekend. A 17-year-old child was also wounded.
The Granite School District, which serves West Valley City, sent a notice to schools Tuesday night, informing staff that the district’s crisis response team would be available Wednesday. “If your student has been affected by this incident, please encourage them to come to the main office and they will receive support,” the notice said.
The district also advised schools to refer to the SafeUT app, which provides 24/7 access to chat with a licensed counselor.
When dealing with loss, the district said in its notice, “you and your student may feel many emotions including sadness, confusion, grief, and possibly anger. They need a caring adult with whom they can talk about death, dying and loss.”
The West Valley City killings unfolded nearly two years after a father in the small southern Utah community of Enoch in January 2023 shot his five kids, along with his 40-year-old wife and the wife’s 78-year-old mother, before turning the gun on himself. The slayings happened two weeks after the wife had filed for divorce, police said.
A few months later, in May 2023, a Layton man killed his 36-year-old wife, his in-laws and three family dogs before calling police. He pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated murder in October 2023 and was later sentenced to three consecutive life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole.
Kimmi Wolf, with the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition, said it’s “terrifying [that] this type of violence is viewed by some as an option.”
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) A home on Oxford Way in West Valley City, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024, where police say five family members were found dead the previous day. Another person, a 17 year old boy, was also found wounded.
Though West Valley City police hadn’t visited the home before, Wolf said, “that does not mean that there were not issues, obviously — power and control issues, domestic issues.”
“There are victims who say that ‘he or she has never physically abused me.’ Yes, there’s been jealousy, control, anger issues — but there was none of that sequence where there was an attempt on someone’s life,” Wolf said. “Just because the physical aspect of a domestic-violence situation has [not] been started does not mean that there is not danger.”
One out of every three women in Utah, Wolf said, have been involved in a domestic violence situation at some point of their life. “What about those two out of three? … Could those two out of three have intervened in some way?”
Intervention doesn’t just mean physically getting in the way, she said. “Intervention could just start with believing,” she said.
Editor’s note • Those who are experiencing intimate partner violence, or know someone who is, are urged to call the Utah Domestic Violence Link Line, 1-800-897-LINK (5465), or Utah’s 24-Hour Sexual Violence Help Line, 801-736-4356 (or 801-924-0860 in Spanish). If you or people you know are at risk of self-harm, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s 24-hour support.
