Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah broke down Monday as he described the bloodshed inside a Perry Street home.
“It was horrific. It was the worst scene I have ever experienced,” Lorah said at an emotional press conference.
The massacre left nine dead, including the shooter, after a grandfather turned a Friday evening family gathering into a slaughter that spanned three generations.
Police identified the gunman as Matthew Stone Sr., 45, who killed his wife Michelle Stone, 44, their three children Matthew Stone Jr., 21, Jonathan Stone, 19, and Angelina Stone, 24, plus two of his grandchildren before taking his own life in an upstairs room.
Angelina Stone was days from giving birth. She was due this Wednesday with her third child, a boy named Kyrie, who was counted among the dead. Her two children who were also killed were 5-year-old son Isiah and 1-year-old daughter Amari’anna.
Two women who tried to intervene died as well. Lora Roberts, 37, had been a frequent presence at the house helping her niece and neighbor Angelina through the pregnancy. Family friend Twila Tanner, 51, was the only victim with no blood relation to the Stones.
Ring doorbell footage obtained by Your Erie captured the chaos as the violence spilled outside. Two women ran across a yard toward the house to investigate a commotion, then someone unleashed a scream of “Oh my God!” as children shrieked in the background. The women sprinted back across the lawn while a voice yelled at neighbors to get back inside their houses.
Investigators said footage showed gunshots erupted inside the home before Roberts and Tanner, appearing “distressed,” began banging on the door. Matthew Stone Sr. Then came outside and shot them dead before returning inside to kill himself, police said.
Officers arrived shortly before 5 p.m. At the east side home in the lakeside city about 100 miles southwest of Buffalo. Roberts and Tanner lay dead outside. Inside, first responders found Isiah and Amari’anna’s bodies on the first floor. Two women and two men were dead in a stairwell. The shooter was upstairs.
The motive remains under investigation. Police have suggested only that mental health could have been a factor, and investigators said they were interviewing relatives to determine what may have happened.
Matthew Stone Sr. Slaughtered three generations of his own family and two women who tried to save them before the Friday evening rampage ended with his suicide.
Police continue to interview family members as they work to understand what drove the 45-year-old to destroy his entire household.