A man who shot dead his five kids, his wife and her mother after he was investigated for child abuse left a suicide note which was a rant against his family.
The eight family members, including the father, were found dead at their home in Enoch, a small town south of Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 4 this year.
Investigators portrayed Michael Haight, 42, as controlling and abusive against his close ones in a 57-page report that followed the massacre, and said there are no other suspects in the case.
Disturbing bodycam footage released from the scene of the slaughter shows the police officers discovering the bodies as they make their way into the bloodied house where the family lived.
In a suicide note that Haight left before the tragic murder-suicide, he reportedly put the blame on his wife, saying he “would rather rot in hell” than continue enduring what he called controlling behaviour by her.
The report cites the family's communications before the killings and interviews from community members conducted after the January tragedy.
“This is nonsense and I can’t handle it for one more day. We will not be a burden on society. I kept asking for help and you wouldn’t listen,” Michael Haight, 42, wrote in the note included in the report released by the city of Enoch.
“I would rather rot in hell than to put up with another day of this manipulation and control over me,” Haight wrote.
The report builds off documents released after the murder-suicide that detailed how Haight removed firearms from the home, was investigated on suspicion of child abuse, and searched online for “gunshot in a house” in the lead-up to the shootings.
It paints a picture of Haight as a volatile husband concerned about maintaining a facade of perfection throughout the southern Utah community in which the family lived, where the majority of residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The report also details how bedding was laid over all but one of his children's bodies in bedrooms throughout the home.
Body camera footage released along with the report shows a tidy home.
Investigators also interviewed a neighbour who said she was awakened on the night before the eight bodies were discovered when she heard multiple “bangs” that she assumed were fireworks.
The report describes the circumstances leading up to the killings, which took place two weeks after Haight's wife, Tausha Haight, filed for divorce.
People close to the Haights interviewed by investigators whose names were redacted in the report said that Michael Haight had lost his job at Allstate Insurance in nearby Cedar City, Utah and was seeking to start an independent agency.
They said, despite his wife's wishes and pursuit of divorce, that he remained living in the family home up to the tragedy with his wife, five children and mother-in-law, who was there out of safety concerns for her daughter.
The report also details how Haight, his wife, mother-in-law and five children were found in bedrooms throughout the family home on the afternoon of January 4 after a person police described as a “family friend” entered through an open door.
Police had gone to check on the Haights earlier in the afternoon after concerns about their welfare were reported, but left without reporting any signs or observations of violence.
“No one answered the door. It didn’t appear that anyone was in the home since no noise could be heard,” an Enoch Police officer wrote in a report summarising his visit to the family home before bodies were discovered.
Tausha Haight, her mother Gail Earl and her four-year-old child were found in the couple’s first-floor bedroom laying on pillows, partially covered with blankets and surrounded by blood.
The other children were found in bedrooms throughout the home, all of them in their beds except for the seven-year-old on the floor and Haight, who was found lying on the floor on a sleeping bag.
The southern Utah murder-suicide is among more than 30 family mass killings that have occurred in the United States over the past two years.
They've happened nearly every three and a half weeks over the last two decades on average.
