Two teenagers suspected in a “targeted mass shooting” that left five members of the same family dead in East St. Louis, Illinois, were arrested on July 12 at Frank Holten State Park — apprehended after Illinois State Police executed a precision immobilization technique (PIT) maneuver on a vehicle one of the suspects was driving. Officials publicly announced the arrests the following day.
The suspects, ages 15 and 16, have not been formally charged. Police and prosecutors declined to reveal their names or genders, citing the involvement of potential juvenile defendants. Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly confirmed that law enforcement is collaborating with the local prosecutor’s office to bring charges in the case.
The five people killed were Cherie L. May, 49; Devin D. May, 24; Patricia A. May, 74; Quentin L. Thompson, 21; and Shania W. Thompson, 25 — all residents of East St. Louis. Two additional family members were wounded and transported to a hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, where they were treated for serious injuries. In total, seven members of the same family were shot.
Three Locations, Miles Apart
The killings unfolded across three separate locations within a few miles of one another in East St. Louis. One person was fatally shot near Summit Avenue and North 39th Street. Three more were killed at the Samuel Gompers Homes public housing complex. A fifth victim died at Jones Park, where the two survivors were also shot. No bystanders were struck in any of the attacks. Authorities have not released a precise timeline of when each shooting occurred.
Kelly said seven family members were shot at different locations, with five fatalities confirmed. He described such quintuple shooting events in Illinois state history as “very rare.”
Authorities confirmed that at least one of the suspects is believed to be related to at least one of the victims but declined to elaborate further on the nature of those relationships. Kelly said at least one suspect has a family connection to those killed. A representative for the St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s Office explained the limited disclosure by noting that Illinois Supreme Court rules restrict what prosecutors can say publicly when juveniles may be involved.
Patricia A. May, 74, the oldest of the five victims, held a position at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville for a quarter-century, from 1986 through 2011, the university confirmed.
Gun Laws and the State Border
Kelly declined to comment on how the teenagers may have obtained firearms. Illinois maintains some of the strictest gun laws in the country, requiring gun buyers to carry a firearm identification card. However, East St. Louis sits directly on the Illinois state border with Missouri — a state with minimal firearm regulations, requiring no purchase or carry permits, maintaining no gun owner registry, imposing no rules on private gun transfers or storage, and allowing minors to possess rifles, shotguns, and handguns. Missouri does make it illegal to sell firearms to minors without parental consent, but otherwise imposes few barriers.
The proximity of East St. Louis — a city of nearly 18,000 people situated across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis — to Missouri’s more permissive firearms environment has long drawn scrutiny from gun violence researchers and law enforcement alike.
A Pattern of Family Annihilation
The East St. Louis killings fit the definition of a crime type known since the 1980s as “family annihilation” — cases in which a perpetrator kills multiple close family members, most often with a firearm. A July 2023 investigation by the Indianapolis Star found such incidents were occurring across the United States every five days on average. The Gun Violence Archive, a nonpartisan tracking organization, recorded the East St. Louis attack as at least the 12th mass murder in the US so far in 2026, and at least seven of those cases fit the family annihilation definition. As of Monday morning, more than 240 mass shootings — defined as incidents in which four or more victims are wounded or killed — had been recorded nationwide in 2026.
The East St. Louis killings are the latest in a string of domestic-related mass shootings across the country in recent months. On June 9, a man fatally shot four people, including his parents, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend, at a home in suburban Detroit before surrendering to police. On June 1, a 52-year-old man killed six family members in a shooting spree across a small city in eastern Iowa before taking his own life when confronted by officers. In May, Houston police investigated a murder-suicide in which a 52-year-old man shot his wife and two children before turning the gun on himself. In April, a gunman in northwest Louisiana killed seven of his own children and wounded his wife and another woman in a mass shooting that left eight children dead. That same month, former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax killed his wife Cerina Fairfax and then himself; their teenage son and daughter were home at the time but were not harmed.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions has characterized domestic violence as a “public health crisis,” stating that current or former romantic partners kill nearly half of all murdered women in the U.S., with firearms used in over half of such homicides. Research covering 2014 to 2019 found that roughly 68% of mass shooting cases included a perpetrator who killed family members or intimate partners. Kelly condemned the violence as terrible and evil, but said at a news conference following the arrests that it would not defeat the community.
The investigation into the East St. Louis shootings remains ongoing. No charges had been filed against either suspect as of the latest reporting.
Sources:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/2-teens-suspected-shooting-spree-killed-5-people-family-illinois-rcna587261
https://abc7chicago.com/post/7-family-members-shot-5-killed-east-saint-louis-illinois-2-teen-suspects-custody-state-police-say/19494478/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/crime/2026/07/14/illinois-family-shooting-teens-arrested/90907772007/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/13/east-st-louis-illinois-shooting-arrests
