5 dead: Neighbors remember Mason County family killed in apparent murder-suicide



UPDATE: The Mason County Coroner identified the fifth person found dead on Monday as 68-year-old Donna Reed, a neighbor.

BELFAIR, Wash. -- The Mason County Coroner has released names of four of the five people found dead at a home on Northeast Horseshoe Drive on Friday.

The victims are identified as 49-year-old Lana J. Carlson, 16-year-old Quinn Carlson and 18-year-old Tory Carlson.

 



A fourth person's name is being withheld until their next of kin can be notified.

The suspected shooter, David Wayne Campbell, 51, fatally shot himself in front of law enforcement following a three hour standoff.

Police are not ready to say whether there had been any instances of violence before at the home.

Neighbors say the family ran one successful business and were about to start another one.

“I didn’t know what the heck was going on.”

Jack Pigott didn’t know what to think when ambulances arrived in his neighborhood outside Belfair. It was only after sheriff's deputies told him there had been a shooting at the property across the street -- at the home of his neighbors who ran a successful heating and air conditioning business -- that he remembered hearing some noises Thursday night.

“I went outside to get the wood, and I hear a couple gunshots,” he said. “Bang, bang, then a pause, then bang, bang, bang, bang.”

The Mason County Sheriff’s Office said a man called deputies a little after 9 a.m. Friday and told them he had killed four people and threatened to kill himself. SWAT teams swarmed the rural property, and tried to negotiate with the armed man. But shortly after noon, he walked out of his home and shot himself dead.

Police did find four victims in a chicken coop on the property. They are not saying who they are or how they might have been related to the man. But police say a 12-year-old girl did survive by escaping the house, and she was related to the gunman. The girl was taken to the hospital to be checked out.

“Thank God she’s still alive, she’s a real sweet child,” Pigott said.

He added that his neighbors had three children. The girl had been adopted from China when she was a baby, and two older boys had been adopted from Russia, he said.

“They were being home-schooled. They had went to the public schools, everything was all right as far as I knew,” he said.

“That girl was so pretty, beautiful,” added his wife, Francis. “And those boys, they were handsome boys, let me tell you.”

She said she’s still in shock, thinking about what happened to the family.

“Oh it hurts, it hurts bad. I love Jesus and I’ll pray to the Lord every night now that someone will take care of that little girl,” she said of the 12-year-old. “I tell you, I’d take her if I could, if they’d let me.”

Police did not have an update on the girl’s condition Friday night. They said she will be taken in by Child Protective Services, until family members can be notified.