Authorities have said five people, including two children and a baby, were killed in a murder-suicide, but they haven’t identified the shooter. The bodies were found Friday in Emington, a small farming community about 80 miles southwest of Chicago.
Neighbor Annelise Fiedler told The Associated Press that she heard a round of shots Friday afternoon and ran outside to her backyard.
She saw 30-year-old Sara McMeen in the next yard over hovering over her baby as if she’d dropped her. Fiedler asked McMeen if everything was alright, and “she looked at me and said, ‘No, everything is not alright.”
McMeen fired a shot at the infant, “and then I just ran,” said Fiedler, a town trustee. Fiedler said she didn’t see or hear what happened after that, and she didn’t see any of the other victims.
Along with McMeen, Livingston County coroner Michael Burke identified them as 29-year-old Daniel Warren, 8-year-old Skyler Lemke, 7-year-old Ian Lemke and 10-month-old Maggie Warren.
Livingston County Sheriff Martin Meredith said all the children belonged to McMeen, and he described Daniel Warren as her live-in boyfriend.
While not specifically saying the gunman was among the dead, Livingston County Sheriff Martin Meredith said the community was "safe from any harm" and authorities "are not looking for anyone in this crime."
County board member Bob Young, who lives in Emington, said the dead included a man, a woman, an infant, a first-grader and a fourth-grader. The family that lived in the house had moved to the town of about 100 people about 80 miles southwest of Chicago within the last six months, and the two older children attended school in nearby Saunemin.
Meredith said first responders found the bodies after Livingston County dispatchers received a call Friday afternoon. They were not immediately identified.
Livingston County authorities and Illinois State Police crime scene technicians were still working the scene late Friday, Meredith said.
Ronald Groetsema lives near the home where the family was found and said he heard six to eight gunshots, then heard a second round of four to six shots a few minutes later. Groetsema's 12-year-old son got off the school bus with the children who died, he said.
"They were happy because it was the last day of school before Christmas break," Groetsema said.
Young said he did not know the family well.
"We've seen the kids playing at the playground and talk to them," Young said. "We thought everything was fine.
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