Eight members of one family, four of them children, were shot to death when a relative who had been asked weeks earlier to move out of his parents’ house turned up unannounced at a dinner gathering on the evening of August 23, 2026, at a home outside Billings, Mont., a surviving relative said. Ten days later, investigators have not said why.
The gunman was 44-year-old Alan Michael Smith, according to Brad Ireland, who lost his former wife and two of his children in the attack. Killed alongside those four children, Ireland said, were Smith’s grandmother, his father and mother, and his younger sister, and he said Smith set the house ablaze after shooting them.
Four adults and four children died inside the home on White Star Circle, investigators confirmed on Tuesday, August 25, along with the suspect, who suffered an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Interim Yellowstone County Sheriff Kent O’Donnell identified the victims, among them Evelyn Smith, 92, the family matriarch, who was visiting for the dinner, and her son Dana Smith, 73, who owned the home with his wife Barbara, 72. Four generations were represented among the dead, the sheriff said, with ages ranging from seven to 92. No one else is being sought and the community faces no continued threat, O’Donnell said.
Three Minutes to a Firestorm
At 6:01 p.m., a 911 call reported an active shooting event at 315 White Star Circle. The first officer arrived 11 minutes later. Gunfire was cracking from behind the house as the squad cars pulled up, and a man was visible in the backyard of the residence, which was already smoking. Officers then heard more shots. Three minutes after police arrived, the home was fully engulfed.
O’Donnell later laid out a fuller sequence at a news conference: officers encountered Smith outside, he retreated back into the house, and more gunshots were heard before officers found him at the back of the house with an apparent self-inflicted wound. “It wasn’t known [at the time] that he was actually the suspect of all this,” O’Donnell told reporters.
Once the fire was spotted, the flames took priority, Billings Police Assistant Chief Shawn Mayo said, because they blocked any reasonable attempt to reach the victims. No water could be put on the fire before the scene was secure, and no fire hydrants were required in the subdivision, which lies beyond the city limits. “This is a county residence, so they do not have city services. All the houses are on wells,” O’Donnell said, adding that crews “had to haul in truckloads of water, set up a temporary tank, and pump out of that tank.” Positions had to be chosen alongside law enforcement that balanced how fast the fire was moving against the danger still facing responders, Billings Fire Chief Matt Hoppel said.
The house had burned down to its foundation by the time crews finished fighting the fire at about 1 a.m. on Monday, August 24. Officers took the suspect into custody and he was transported to a local hospital around 6:48 p.m., where he died. Every one of the victims died at the scene.
Four Generations Around One Table
Every one of the dead belonged to a single blended family, the youngest a girl of seven and the oldest a great-grandmother in her 90s who used a wheelchair. Jennifer Mercer, a neighbor and family friend who organized an online fundraiser, released those details with the family’s permission.
Among the dead were Megan Ireland-Ghekiere, 39, Smith’s sister and Ireland’s ex-wife, and the two children they had together, Owen Ireland, 13, and Chloe Ireland, seven, he said. Her marriage to Adam Ghekiere had also brought her two stepchildren — Landon Ghekiere, 15, and Charlotte Ghekiere, 12 — and they were killed as well, along with her parents, Dana and Barbara Smith, and Dana’s mother, Evelyn Smith, a resident of a nearby retirement community.
The 911 call came from Charlotte. “The one thing we do know is that Charlotte was the hero,” Mercer said. “Charlotte called 911 and she tried to save her family.” It was a close and loving family, she said, and the parents had remained on good terms after their divorces.
A Father Working When the Call Came
Word of an incident at his in-laws’ address came across the department’s communications system while Adam Ghekiere, Megan’s husband, was on shift as an airport rescue firefighter in Billings. He called the house, attempted to track his children’s phones and dialed his wife’s cellphone. Nobody picked up.
Officers held him back when he reached the street, because active shooter status was still in effect at the scene. Two hours passed before he learned his wife and children were dead. Family dinner was usually on Friday, and Landon and Charlotte were not supposed to be there. “I don’t think he expected my kids to be there,” Ghekiere told CBS News, referring to his brother-in-law.
On a fundraising page, Landon was remembered as a caring teenager quick to help family and neighbors, while Charlotte was described as a girl about to start seventh grade who loved posing for photos. Friends set up three online fundraisers — one for Adam Ghekiere, one for Landon and Charlotte, and one for Owen and Chloe. Together they had raised about $269,000 by August 28. Erica Schneider, Adam Ghekiere’s ex-wife and the mother of Landon and Charlotte, is a beneficiary of one of them.
Red Flags and a Slow Investigation
Originally from the Seattle area, the Smith family put down roots in Montana in stages, Ireland said: Megan moved there with their children after the couple divorced six years ago and met Adam Ghekiere, and her parents followed, buying a house near their daughter’s. Alan Smith lived with them for years before they asked him to leave a couple of weeks before the shooting.
Ireland, who lives in Arizona, described his former brother-in-law as a hermit who spent his days in his room on a computer. “There were many red flags and many people spoke out,” he told Newsweek. “No one listened.” To his knowledge, Smith had never been violent, though he could be verbally abusive. Smith attended Eastern Washington University but struggled to find and keep work, and records checks in Montana and Washington showed no arrests or charges against him.
Investigators believe the killings began as a family disturbance, O’Donnell said on Monday, August 24, asking for patience and noting that the fire and the water used to douse it will slow the recovery of evidence.
Searching the rubble took crews days, the sheriff said. As of Thursday, August 27, every occupant who had been inside the house was accounted for.
Concerns about the structural integrity of the gutted house have complicated the work, said Jeff Stovall, a spokesperson for the Billings Police Department. O’Donnell said multiple fires were suspected to have started inside the 4,000-square-foot home.
Hoppel said the cause and origin of the fire will be examined once the scene is declared safe. The Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office is leading the homicide investigation, working with Billings police and multiple local, state and federal agencies. Weapons were recovered from the home, KTVQ reported, though the sheriff did not describe them or say which Smith had used.
A Week On, No Motive
More than 1,000 people filled Veterans Park in Billings on Thursday, August 27, for a candlelight vigil.
Investigators have not established why Smith did it, and O’Donnell has said they may never. Some of the questions “we probably won’t ever be able to answer,” he said, adding that “some of this is the family’s story to tell.” A week after the shooting, no cause had been released for the fire and no autopsy findings had been made public, while the roadside memorial kept growing outside the burned house.