Weeks before Shamar Elkins opened fire inside a Shreveport home and killed eight children, seven of them his own, the 31-year-old told his stepfather that "some people don't come back from their demons." The remark, relayed by stepfather Marcus Jackson, now reads like a confession made before the fact. On Easter Sunday, around 6 a.m., Elkins turned those words into the worst mass killing Shreveport has ever seen.

Police say Elkins shot most of the children in the head while they slept. One child was killed on the roof while trying to escape. Two women, his wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, and a second woman police believe was his girlfriend, were also shot and seriously wounded. Elkins then fled, carjacked a vehicle, and was killed by law enforcement during the pursuit, Fox News reported.

The dead children, five girls and three boys, ages 3 to 11, have been identified as Jayla Elkins, 3; Shayla Elkins, 5; Braylon Snow, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Khedarrion Snow, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; and Sariahh Snow, 11. Seven were Elkins' own children. The eighth was their cousin.

A family gathering turned into a massacre

All eight children had been gathered at one house in Shreveport when the attack began. Shreveport Police Department spokesman Christopher Bordelon told NBC News that Elkins shot his wife in the face at the home where the children were found. A second woman was shot at a separate house nearby. Crystal Brown, a relative of one of the wounded women, told the Associated Press that Elkins shared four of the slain children with his wife and three with the other injured woman.

Brown said the couple was in the middle of separation proceedings and was due in court on Monday. They had been arguing about the relationship ending when Elkins opened fire. Elkins and Pugh had married in 2024.

Bordelon described the scene as "an extensive scene unlike anything most of us have ever seen." Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith echoed that assessment. "I just cannot begin to imagine how such an event can occur," Smith said, as the Washington Examiner reported.

Mayor Tom Arceneaux called it "a tragic situation, maybe the worst tragic situation we've ever had in Shreveport." Shreveport Councilman Grayson Boucher put the toll in blunt numerical terms: the city had "more than doubled our homicide rate" because of a single act of domestic violence, the Washington Times reported.

The Easter Sunday phone call

Before the shooting, Elkins called his mother, Mahelia Elkins, and his stepfather, Marcus Jackson. The New York Times reported that during the call, Elkins said he was drowning in "dark thoughts" and wanted to end his life. He told them his wife wanted a divorce.

Jackson tried to talk him through it. As he later recalled to the New York Post:

"I told him, 'You can beat stuff, man. I don't care what you're going through, you can beat it.'"

Elkins' response has haunted his stepfather since. Jackson recalled him saying:

"Some people don't come back from their demons."

Mahelia Elkins said she was unclear what problems her son and his wife were dealing with. She had reconnected with Elkins more than a decade ago after leaving him to be raised by Betty Walker, a family friend.

Walker, who did not witness the shootings, described learning of the massacre in the starkest terms. She said Elkins had shot his wife several times in the head and stomach. The last time she saw him was when his family came over for dinner the previous weekend.

Walker told reporters:

"I was getting up this morning to make myself some coffee, and I got the call. My babies, my babies are gone."

A record that should have raised alarms

Elkins had two prior convictions. In 2016, he was convicted of driving while intoxicated. In 2019, he was convicted of the illegal use of weapons. A March 2019 police report detailed that Elkins pulled a 9 millimeter handgun from his waistband and fired at a vehicle five times after the driver pulled a gun on him. One of the bullets was found near a school where children were playing.

He served with the Louisiana Army National Guard from August 2013 to August 2020 as a signal support system specialist and a fire support specialist. An Army official told Fox News Digital that Elkins had no deployment history and left the service as a private. He later worked at UPS, where a co-worker described him as a devoted father who often seemed stressed.

That profile, a weapons conviction, a history of firing a handgun near a school, and a military background with no advancement, raises hard questions about what systems, if any, flagged Elkins as a risk. The fact that he was convicted of illegal weapons use in 2019 and still had access to a firearm on Easter Sunday demands an answer from Louisiana authorities. Cases involving military-connected suspects and domestic violence have drawn increasing scrutiny for exactly this kind of gap.

Domestic violence and the cost of inaction

Authorities were confident the shooting was "entirely a domestic incident," Newsmax reported, citing Bordelon. Crystal Brown's account, that the couple was separating, that a court date loomed, that the argument was about the relationship ending, fits a grim pattern familiar to anyone who works in domestic violence response. The most dangerous moment in an abusive relationship is often the moment of separation.

What makes this case distinct is the scale. Eight children. Ages 3 to 11. Shot in their sleep. One killed trying to flee across a rooftop. This was not a crime of impulse that ended in a single act. Police say Elkins moved across multiple locations, shooting at three homes and targeting ten people in total.

The warning signs were not subtle. Elkins told his stepfather he couldn't escape his demons. He told his family he wanted to end his life. He had a weapons conviction and a documented history of firing a gun in a public area. The separation was escalating. A court date was set. And yet, on Easter morning, eight children were asleep in a house with a man spiraling toward the worst act of violence in Shreveport's history.

Investigators have not publicly disclosed whether anyone contacted law enforcement or social services before the shooting. That question, who knew, and what was done, will shape whether this tragedy produces accountability or just grief. Disturbing confessions of dark impulses before mass violence have surfaced in other recent criminal cases, raising the same painful question each time.

A community left with names, not answers

The names of the dead children deserve to be read slowly: Jayla, 3. Shayla, 5. Braylon, 5. Kayla, 6. Khedarrion, 6. Layla, 7. Markaydon, 10. Sariahh, 11. Five girls. Three boys. None old enough to drive, vote, or defend themselves.

Shreveport now joins a list of American cities marked by acts of domestic violence so extreme they defy the usual categories. The shooter is dead. The children are dead. The two women he shot are fighting for their lives. What remains are open questions about a system that watched a man with a weapons conviction, a crumbling marriage, and self-described "dark thoughts" walk into a house full of sleeping children with a gun.

Suspects who invoke demonic forces or satanic imagery before committing acts of violence are not as rare as the public might hope. A recent case in Pennsylvania involved a man who styled himself after Satan and pleaded guilty to threatening federal officials. The language differs. The pattern of escalation does not.

Elkins' co-workers saw stress. His family heard despair. His record showed a man who had already fired a weapon recklessly in public. Somewhere between the warning and the act, every safeguard failed. Cases of extreme violence tied to mental health crises keep producing the same aftermath: shock, grief, and a trail of missed signals that only looks obvious in hindsight.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Those in crisis can also text START to 88788.

Eight children are gone. The demons Shamar Elkins said he couldn't escape were never really his to claim. They belonged to the people who had to live with what he did.