A man fatally shot his wife and their six children, then himself, before they all were found in their burning Michigan home last week, investigators said Monday, July 27, 2026.
Kristopher and Amanda Karolkiewicz and their six children, aged 5 to 15, died on Friday, July 24, in their home in Grand Haven Township, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan.
Authorities were summoned for a fire and then discovered the bodies.
The Ottawa County Sheriff's Department said in a release Monday that autopsies determined all the family members died of gunshot wounds, and that Kristopher Karolkiewicz took his own life.
"This is an unspeakable tragedy that we may never completely understand," Sheriff Eric DeBoer said in a statement read aloud at a news conference by one of his deputies, Captain Jacob Sparks.
The fire appears to have been set intentionally in multiple parts of the home after the killings, but officials still are investigating the origin point, Sparks said.
It's unclear exactly when the series of events began; officials got calls about a smoky smell in the area Monday morning, checked it out but found nothing.
After getting more calls about three hours later, they returned, saw smoke coming from the Karolkiewicz home and found the bodies, at least some of them in bedrooms, Sparks said.
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