SHREVEPORT, La. — The two mothers stood together, eight small caskets arrayed in a semicircle before them.
Friday was the first time they had seen their children — the youngest 3 and the oldest 11 — since that chaotic morning last month when the father of their seven children shot them as they slept.
They could see their children’s names traced in gold on the lids. The women marveled at the girls’ sparkly dresses and the boys’ suits, all white, picked by funeral home staff. They could see the boys’ hair was neatly trimmed, the girls in braids. As the women, both of whom were shot multiple times in the attack, consoled each other, they repeated how beautiful the children looked. Makeup, hats, strategically placed flowers and barrettes hid their wounds.
“I wish they could wake up from it. This is all like a dream,” said Keosha Pugh, the mother of the eighth victim, who came to the viewing separately. She left the funeral home with the help of a walker. She had leaped from a roof to escape the attack, breaking her pelvis and hip in the fall.
Pugh, 33, appeared stunned. So did her husband, Troy Brown. He said the children looked “at peace.”
Their son Mar’Kaydon, 10, died in the attack, while their 12-year-old daughter, Mar’Kianna, survived and also attended the viewing. The couple had brought a banner signed in colored markers by their children’s classmates.
“We’re coping,” Brown, 46, said as he helped his wife to the car. “Her healing is progressing real good.”
In the days after the attack on April 19, the mothers decided together to hold one funeral for all of their children. They chose the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend and posted fliers with the faces of the children they now call “the Eternal Eight.”
Brown said he planned to place teddy bears and crosses in their white caskets at the funeral on Saturday. He didn’t trust himself to approach the open caskets on Friday.
“They would have had to pry me off,” Brown said.
Christina Snow, 31, the mother of three of the children — Braylon, 5; Khedarrion, 6, and Sariahh, 11 — had been shot in the face. She had braced herself for the viewing.
“I can’t believe we really preparing ourselves to go view our babies y’all lord be with us,” she posted on Facebook on Friday morning, tagging Keosha Pugh and her older sister, Shaneiqua Pugh, 34, who lost all four of her children: Jayla, 3; Shayla, 5; Kayla, 6; and Layla, 7. “I love y’all we gone get through this together.”
After the viewing, Snow posted again on Facebook: “Our babies are so handsome and beautiful,” she wrote. “They are in peace.”
After the family left the viewing, scores of supporters filed inside. Many of those waiting in line to view the children on Saturday had not known the victims but said they felt compelled to bear witness. A few brought their own small children, who filed past the bodies and then hugged their mothers outside, sobbing.
LaShun Berry lingered after accompanying Snow, whom she considers family. Berry has been talking to all three mothers since the shooting, and thinks they are still in shock.
“One minute they’re talking to you and the next they’re just staring,” said Berry, noting that Snow’s face is still swollen, a bullet lodged in her temple.
Standing with the mothers as they viewed their children for the first time, Berry said she saw the enormity of the tragedy sinking in.
“The mamas are handling it because the kids look so real. They’re processing it. They were like, ‘These are our babies? Oh, my God,’” she said, frustrated. “Eight children didn’t get to experience life. You want to ask: Why?”
Shamar Elkins, 31, shot the children and two of their mothers last month in an attack that rocked this small city and a country grappling with deadly domestic violence. His wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, had filed for divorce, and the couple were scheduled to appear in court the next day.
Within an hour of the attack, which authorities described as “execution style,” Elkins, a Louisiana Army National Guard veteran who had been working for UPS, had died in a shootout with police. Brown said Elkins had struggled with mental problems, was evaluated and prescribed medication at a local Veterans Affairs hospital earlier this year.
Saturday’s funeral at a local Baptist church is expected to include Rep. Cleo Fields (D), who represents this area of northwest Louisiana, as well as the mayor of Shreveport and other local officials. The family asked attendees to wear pink, white, royal blue and purple — the children’s favorite colors, Brown said.
Following the funeral, all eight children will be taken to Forest Park Cemetery West for burial. The Louisiana first lady’s foundation, Love One Louisiana, is expected to cover funeral and burial expenses, according to a spokeswoman for the funeral home.
Caddo Parish Coroner Todd G. Thoma recalled during an interview at his office on Friday how he was called to Elkins’s house to document the crime scene. All of the children had been shot at least once in the head, he said.
Thoma, 68, has served as coroner for 19 years. He considers himself “hardened.” But this was among the worst mass casualties he’s seen — the most dead and certainly the most children. It made him think of his own grandchildren.
“Cases like this disturb me a lot,” he said.
Thoma doesn’t plan to attend the children’s funeral — he doesn’t think it’s his place — but the deaths haunt him and the community: “The sheer tragedy of that many victims … the depravity of who would do this and why?”
“What is accountability going to look like in a situation like this?” U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Keller said at a Friday briefing, where he announced two grand jury indictments against men who had been involved.
Charles Ford of Shreveport was indicted in connection with supplying Elkins with the assault-style rifle used in the shooting, Keller said. Ford, 56, was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and making a false statement to federal agents investigating the shooting. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
Michael Mayence, 54, of Bossier City, Louisiana, was also indicted by the grand jury, Keller said. A fellow veteran and friend whom Elkins had gone to meet when he died, Mayence was charged with possessing a firearm while subject to a domestic violence injunction after investigators recovered four guns from his home after the shooting. He faces up to 15 years in prison.
“We’re trying to do things to prevent these incidents from happening,” Keller said.
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