Shamar Elkins’ Massacre How a 12 YO Girl Survived the Shooting That Killed His 8 Kids, Wife, Ex
The Sheamar Elkins case has shaken this country to its core since April 19th. Eight children confirmed dead. Two women fighting to stay alive from hospital beds. And then there is the detail that most channels buried in a single line and moved past. Inside that house on West 79th Street, there was a child who made it out alive.
A 12-year-old girl named Mariana. She was inside that home when Shemar Elkins came through the door. She witnessed what happened. She ran for the roof in the dark while the man chasing her had already taken her brother’s life. She jumped from that roof. She survived landing with scratches while her mother hit the ground beside her with a shattered pelvis and broken hip. Mariana is alive.
And the question that common sections across every platform covering this case are demanding an answer to the question mainstream media has not slowed down long enough to address is what does a 12-year-old carry for the rest of her life after surviving something like that? Who is making sure she gets what she needs right now? And why is the conversation about her still not happening? But that is not the only thing this case just revealed.
In the last 48 hours, this case shifted in ways most channels have completely missed. The Shrivefeport Police Department released a revised official timeline that corrects a major sequence of events that every single outlet reported wrong. A federal court affidavit uncovered a moment 6 weeks before April 19th where this entire massacre could have been prevented.
One conversation between two men, one decision, and the man who had that conversation chose to walk away. Today, we cover all of it. The corrected police timeline, the court affidavit details nobody reported fully, the confrontation six weeks before the shooting that went nowhere, how Elkins actually died because most outlets still have not reported that accurately.
The latest condition of every survivor and the conversation about Mariana that this country needs to start having right now. Welcome to Oju Crime Stories. Subscribe before this video goes any further. Hit that notification bell. Every update on this case comes here first. Drop a comment and tell us where you are watching from. Now, here is everything.
Here is what you need locked in before we get into the new developments. On the morning of April 19th, 2026, a mass shooting unfolded across two addresses in the Cedar Grove neighborhood of Shreveport, Louisiana. It began at West 79th Street and extended to Harrison Street before ending in Bozier City just after 7 a.m.
Eight children were killed, five girls, three boys, ages 3 to 11. Seven were the biological children of the shooter. The eighth was his nephew, 10-year-old Marquaden Pew, the son of his sister-in-law, Kosha Pew. Two women were shot. Both survived. One child escaped through a roof. The shooter was Sheamar Elkins, 31 years old, former National Guard soldier, a man who had a felony weapons conviction, a VA hospitalization following a suicide attempt, a pre-marriage death threat nobody ever reported, and a stolen weapon in his
hands for at least 6 weeks before that Sunday morning. He is dead, but this case is far from closed. This is the update. Most channels have not covered properly, and it changes the sequence of events that every outlet originally reported. When this case first broke, investigators and media reported that Elkins went to Harrison Street first, that he shot his ex-wife, Christina Snow, took her children, and then drove to West 79th Street. That was wrong.
The Shrivefeport Police Department released a revised official timeline confirming that the initial violence began at the West 79th Street house, not Harrison Street. Investigators now believe Elkins first shot his wife Shanea inside the home, then carried out the seven murders inside, then pursued Kosha Pew and her two children as they tried to escape to the roof.
Maraden Pew, Kosha’s 10-year-old son, was shot and killed as they tried to get away. Kosha and Mariana jumped. Then Elkins left West 79th Street, went to Harrison Street, shot Christina Snow nine times, and fled. Christina Snow told police when she called 911 that Elkins had taken her three children. What she did not yet know, what she could not have known from her doorstep was that those three children were already dead at West 79th Street.
This revised sequence matters because it means the West 79th Street house was not the second crime scene. It was the first. Everything that happened on Harrison Street happened after eight children were already dead. Now to the federal court documents that most coverage buried on April 21st. Department of Justice charged Charles Ford, a 56-y old Shreveport man, with being a felon in possession of a firearm and making a false statement to federal agents.
What most outlets did not fully report is what the court affidavit reveals about what happened between Ford and Elkins in the weeks before the massacre. Charles Ford has an extensive criminal history, simple burglary, robbery, felony theft, 7 years in prison ending in 2000, and a 2011 domestic abuse battery conviction. He is legally prohibited from possessing any firearm.
Despite that, he kept a Mossberg pistol under the seat of his truck. On March 9th, six weeks before April 19th, Ford told federal agents he noticed the Mossberg was missing from under the seat of his truck. He said Sheamar Elkins was one of the only people who ever rode in that vehicle.
So, he did what most people would do when they suspect someone took something from them. He went and asked him about it. According to the criminal complaint filed in federal court, Ford confronted Elkins directly about the missing weapon. But when he did, Elkins did not deny it. He did not explain it. He became what the affidavit describes in Ford’s own words as offensive. Ford backed down.
He let it go. Read that again and let it settle. A man knew Shemar Elkins had that gun. He looked him in the face and asked about it. Elkins got aggressive and Ford decided the conversation was not worth continuing. He did not call police. He did not file a report. He walked away from that confrontation and said nothing to anyone.
Six weeks later, Elkins used that exact Mossberg to kill eight children. When ATF agents first interviewed Ford after the shooting, he denied ever having the weapon. Called in for a second interview the same day at the ATF office, he contradicted himself, completely admitting he had the gun under his seat and that he believed Elkins took it.
He was arrested on the spot. Ford appeared before US Magistrate Judge Mark Hornsby on April 22nd. He was remanded to US Marshall custody. A detention hearing was set for Friday. He faces up to 15 years on the possession charge and five additional years for lying to federal agents. The ATF and FBI are both active.
How the small caliber handgun used in the first part of the attack was obtained has still not been publicly answered. In 2019, Elkins was arrested near Kado Magnet High School. According to a police report cited by KTBS, he fired five rounds at a vehicle approximately 300 ft from the school while children were present outside.
He pleaded guilty to illegal use of a weapon, 18 months of probation. Under Louisiana law, that conviction barred him from possessing any firearm for at least 10 years until 2029. a hard legal prohibition, not a technicality. Both Elkins and Ford were legally prohibited from owning firearms. Two convicted felons, one stolen Mossberg passed between them.
A confrontation about that weapon 6 weeks before the massacre that one man decided was not worth pushing. The legal bar existed. The enforcement gap was real. And nobody connected those two facts until eight children were already dead. In 2023, Cheniki Wa Pew told Shemar Elkins she was considering leaving him. According to Betty Walker, the woman who raised him and who spoke to the New York Times, Elkins was furious.
He told her directly if they tried to leave, he would kill her, the children, and himself. Walker dismissed it when Elkins said he was just playing. Chenik was stayed. They married in April 2024. That threat was never reported to police. It never entered any system. It sat as private family knowledge for nearly three years.
Walker also confirmed to the New York Times that both Elkins and Shanea had accused each other of infidelity and that financial pressure ran through the marriage the entire time. When Sheniqua filed for divorce, citing infidelity, confirmed to CNN by Troy Brown, the court date was set for Monday, April 20th.
The papers were ready to sign. The 2023 threat had been dormant inside that marriage for nearly 3 years. The moment the legal end of the marriage was one night away, it became operational. Had that threat been reported in 2023, it would have been in the file at the VA. It would have been relevant to the divorce proceeding.
It might have triggered a lethality screening. It was never reported. None of those systems ever had it. In February 2026, Sheamar Elkins attempted to take his own life. Betty Walker confirmed this to the New York Times. Following that attempt, he entered the VA hospital in Shreveport for a mental health evaluation.
According to Crystal Brown Page, a cousin of Troy Brown, he stayed approximately 10 days before being discharged. Troy Brown told reporters Elkins came home seeming better. Brown asked him directly whether he needed to return. Elkins said he was fine. he would deal with it. What the VA discharged him back into a marriage approaching its legal end, financial pressure across two households, a prior death threat on record nowhere, and a stolen Mossberg already in his possession since at least March 9th, unknown to any institution. On Easter
Sunday, April 5th, he called his mother and stepfather in tears. He said Sheniqua had filed for divorce. He was drowning in dark thoughts. His stepfather tried to reassure him. Elkins ended the call with, “Some people don’t come back from their demons. No crisis line, no welfare check, no call to police.
” That same Easter Sunday, Elkins posted a photo on Facebook with all seven of his children together in matching church outfits. Girls in white button-down sweaters with pink stripes, boys in sky blue polos. He wrote it was the first time he had all his children together at church. Two weeks later, those same children were dead. The question that remains unanswered, what did his VA discharge assessment include? Was a lethality screening conducted? Was the divorce flagged? Was the 2019 firearms conviction cross referenced? The VA has not publicly addressed any of
those questions. Saturday afternoon, April 18th, 12 hours before the first emergency call, Freddy Montgomery, a neighbor across the street, saw Elkins sitting on his front porch watching the children play in the yard. The two men waved at each other. Montgomery told CNN there was nothing in that moment that suggested what 12 hours would bring.
“The children were children,” he said. They were children playing in the yard every day. That evening, Elkins took his eldest daughter to dinner alone. He posted a photo of her eating a burger on social media. The public version of Sheamar Elkins, the one his social media reflected, looked like a devoted father the night before he killed her siblings. At 900 p.m.
, Troy Brown left for his night shift. He told AP that Elkins was calm, joking as Brown moved his car out of the driveway. Inside that house when Brown drove away were eight children who would not survive the night and his wife Kosha who would jump from a roof before sunrise. The divorce papers were ready.
The court date was the next morning. Behavioral research on familicide is consistent. The violence is planned, not impulsive. The perpetrator presents as calm beforehand. The trigger is perceived loss of control, a legal finalization, a point of no return. Every element of that pattern was present on the night of April 18th at 5:55 a.m.
First call to Shreveport police. A disturbance at the 300 block of West 79th Street. The caller is on the roof. The suspect is inside. Someone has been shot. The caller is Kiosha Pew, Shenqua’s sister, who lived in that house with her two children, Marcaden, aged 10, and Mariana, age 12. According to the revised SPD timeline, investigators believe Elkins first shot his wife, Sheniqua, inside the home.
He then moved through the house, killing the children. He then pursued Kosha and her two children as they tried to escape toward the roof. As they ran, Marcaden, 10 years old, was shot and killed. Kosha and Mariana made it to the roof. They jumped together in the dark. Kosha broke her pelvis and hip. Mariana landed with scratches.
By 5:58, the caller states, “Shamar Elkins has shot everyone inside. She and her children are in the backyard. She is calling from the roof with broken bones and a 12-year-old daughter beside her.” At 6 1:00 a.m. officers arrive. Now, Mariana, she is 12 years old. She was inside that house. She watched what happened. She ran for the roof while the man coming after her had already killed her brother.
She jumped from that roof and landed on the ground below while her mother shattered her hip beside her. And eight people she loved remained inside. She survived. And this is the question that belongs in this story. The one that comment sections across every platform have been screaming and nobody in mainstream media has slowed down to answer.
What does Mariana carry now? She was 12 years old inside a house where eight people she loved were killed. She made it to the roof. She jumped. She came down into a street filling with police while the people she could not save were still inside. Child trauma specialists who study survivors of mass domestic violence events are consistent. PTSD in child survivors of familicide presents differently than it does in adults.
It often does not surface immediately. It comes later in nightmares, in hypervigilance, in the inability to feel safe in spaces that should feel safe. It shows in school, in relationships, in how a child processes sudden sounds, closed doors, darkness. Survivor guilt, the question of why they made it when others didn’t, is documented in nearly every case involving child survivors of mass violence.
That question can attach itself to a survivor’s identity for decades if it is not actively treated by specialists who understand what she specifically experienced. Mariana did not choose to survive. She chose to jump. Those are not the same thing. The mainstream coverage mentioned her in passing a child jumped from the roof, non-life-threatening injuries, and moved on.
She deserves more than a line in a dispatch report. She is going to need sustained funded trauma specialized mental health care built around what she experienced inside that house before sunrise. Whether that care is being arranged, who is providing it, and what resources are available to her right now, no public source has answered any of those questions.
That gap matters as much as any court document in this case. Back to the timeline. Police spokesperson Chris Bordilon confirmed most children appeared to have been shot in their sleep. Most were shot in the head. Seven of the eight were found inside the home. The eighth Marcaden was found dead during the escape attempt. Bullet holes in the rear door confirm some children tried to flee through the back of the house and did not make it.
At 6:7 a.m., a second call comes in. It is Christina Snow on Harrison Street. She has been shot nine times in the face. She used Siri to reach 911. She reports Elkins took her three children, not yet knowing those children were already dead at West 79th Street. At 6:29, AM officers engaged Elkins at the 400 block of Brmpton Lane in Boier City.
How did Elkins die? According to preliminary autopsy information confirmed to KTBS by investigators, he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Louisiana State Police confirmed the investigation is ongoing, but the preliminary autopsy finding points to suicide. That is the most specific on record information currently available from
any official source. By 7:30 a.m., Shamar Elkins pronounced dead at the scene. The eight children confirmed by the Cado Parish Coroner’s Office. Jayla Elkins three, Shayla Elkins, five, Brilan Snow, five, Caleb Pew, 6, Cadarian Snow, 6, Leila Pew, 7, Marcaden Pew, 10, Sarah Snow, 11. Five girls, three boys killed at West 79th Street before Shrivefeport finished waking up.
Here is where the survivors stand as of the latest confirmed reporting. Sheniki Pew sustained nine gunshot wounds. As of Wednesday, April 23rd, she remains in the ICU, but is communicating and recovering. According to Troy Brown, who confirmed this to CNN, Christina Snow was discharged from hospital on Wednesday, April 23rd.
That same Thursday morning, she attended a vigil outside the Head Start facility where her children, Brilan and Khadarian, had been enrolled, where teachers and community members released balloons in the children’s honor. Kiosha Pew, who broke her pelvis and hip jumping from that roof, attended the Wednesday vigil in a wheelchair, still recovering from surgery.
And Mariana is somewhere in Shreveport, 12 years old, carrying what no child should have to carry. Now, step back and look at the complete picture of what the system had before April 19th. A 2019 weapons conviction barring Elkins from firearms until 2029 on file. A February 20126 suicide attempt followed by VA hospitalization and discharge back into an active crisis documented.
A 2023 death threat against his wife and children. never reported a divorce proceeding with a court date the following morning on the calendar. A stolen Mossberg that Charles Ford knew was missing from March 9th confronted Elkins about and then walked away from. And in March 2026, one month before the shooting, the Shriveveport City Council voted to withdraw from a partnership to operate a domestic violence resource center.
One month before the deadliest domestic violence incident in Louisiana history, a dedicated resource was voted away. Shriveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said at his Monday press conference that the chances were good this was not the first incident of domestic violence in that home. Prior unreported incidents, prior undocumented history.
A pattern that existed before April 19th that never entered any official record. As of April 24th, 2026, four investigations remain open. The ATF full firearms inquiry, the federal prosecution of Charles Ford with a detention hearing set for Friday, the Louisiana State Police Officer involved shooting investigation, and the Shreveport Police Department’s active motive investigation.
The Louisiana Governor’s Love One Louisiana Foundation has covered all funeral costs for the eight children. The Community Foundation of North Louisiana has launched dedicated survivor funds. The systemic questions this case demands are specific. Should a VA discharge for a veteran with an active firearms prohibition and a contested divorce trigger automatic cross agency notification? Should a domestic violence lethality screening be mandatory when a divorce is filed against someone with a prior weapons conviction? Should reporting a
confrontation about a stolen firearm between two convicted felons be mandatory? What would connecting these systems actually require? And what resources are being provided right now to a 12year-old girl named Mariana who jumped off a roof in the dark and landed in a world where eight of the people she loved were gone.
Those are not rhetorical questions. They are the questions eight families in Shreveport are living inside permanently. and they are the questions Mariana will one day be old enough to ask herself. This case is not closed. The Ford prosecution moves forward this week. Full autopsy findings will be released. The complete firearms trace is still being built.
When each of those updates becomes public, we will cover them here. If this is the kind of reporting you want, facts sourced, court documents read, official timelines verified, open questions named clearly as open, subscribe to this channel, hit the notification bell. Every update on this case comes here first. Leave a comment.
Tell us where you are watching from. Tell us what question you still need answered. This community is how cases like this one stay in the public record long enough to demand real accountability. Those eight children deserved every year that was taken from them before sunrise on April 19th, 2026. And Mariana deserves every resource this country has to offer.
