Five family members were found dead at their home outside of Salt Lake City on Tuesday. Police in Utah say the lone survivor of the isolated incident is a teenage boy.
Five members of a Utah family were found dead in their home after a concerned relative checked on the residence, where one survivor was found with a gunshot wound, police said.
The dead are a 42-year-old man, a 38-year-old woman, an 11-year-old boy and girls ages 9 and 2, West Valley City police spokesperson Roxeanne Vainuku said.
It's not clear exactly how the five died; their deaths are the subject of a homicide investigation. Police believe that the violence is over and that it was "isolated to this home," Vainuku said.
“We do not believe there’s a suspect on the loose,” she said.
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Police arrived after the concerned relative entered the home through its garage earlier Tuesday and found a 17-year-old boy alive and injured from a gunshot wound, she said.
The teenager was hospitalized in unknown condition, Vainuku said.
“We do not know at this point if he is a suspect in this case or if he is a victim in this case,” she said.
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Police rushed to the scene and entered the main residence, where the victims were found, Vainuku said. After they cleared the home to ensure no other victims and no possible suspects were inside, officers retreated to await approval of a search warrant, she said.
Police said Tuesday evening on X that they have received a judge's approval to search the home and that detectives were inside collecting evidence.
Vainuku said detectives hope evidence in the residence "will tell us what really happened."
The victims appeared to match what police know about the residence's occupants — a family with two parents and four children ages 2 to 17, Vainuku said.
Police were initially called to the home Monday after the same relative called to say the woman who lives there had been uncharacteristically out of touch for a few days, Vainuku said.
After there was no response to a door knock and after a scan of what could be seen through windows showed no signs of an emergency, police left until Tuesday, she said.
While officers canvassed the neighborhood for more information, detectives have tried to speak to the hospitalized 17-year-old, so far to no avail, Vainuku said.
“I know he suffered a pretty significant injury,” she said. “And so I know he’s in a condition where we’ve not really been able to communicate with him.”
The deaths more than doubled the city's number of homicides for 2024, Vainuku said, which had been four.
West Valley City, which has a population of 134,470, is about 10 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. It was incorporated in 1980 to serve four fast-growing communities outside Salt Lake City.
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