The bodies of Sarah and Tyler Schmidt and their daughter Lula were found in their tent
(Picture: AP)A six-year-old girl and her parents were shot dead while camping in the US state of Iowa in an attack the couple’s nine-year-old son survived.
The bodies of Sarah and Tyler Schmidt, both 42, and their daughter Lula were found in their tent while on a trip to the Maquoketa Caves State Park campground.
The couple’s son “survived the attack, and is safe”, their neighbour and home town’s mayor said.
Authorities said the suspected gunman, 23-year-old Anthony Sherwin, who was also staying at the campsite, was found dead in a wooded area of the park with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Investigators said the motive for the killing of Ms Schmidt, who worked at the public library in her home town of Cedar Falls some 100 miles from where she was killed, her IT software engineer husband, and daughter was still unknown.
“We don’t know what led up to this, what precipitated it,” Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Department of Public Safety’s division of criminal investigation, said.
“The investigation has not revealed any early interaction between the Schmidt family and him.”
Adam Morehouse, Ms Schmidt’s brother, said the family had no connection to Sherwin and he believed it was a “completely random act.”
Ms Schmidt’s sister Jana Morehouse, paid tribute saying: “Today, my life has been shattered. My beautiful, smart, funny, curly haired sister, her husband, and their six year old daughter were victims of a random act of violence while camping as a family in Iowa. Their nine year old son was able to survive and has a lifetime of trauma ahead.”
A GoFundMe page set up to help the nine-year-old had raised almost $150,000 (£125,000) by Sunday evening.
The page organiser, Ms Schmidt’s cousin Beth Shapiro, said that the boy was “surrounded by family and friends who are supporting him as best we can”.
The Des Moines Register, a daily newspaper in Iowa, reported that Sherwin was from La Vista, Nebraska.
La Vista Police Chief Bob Lausten told the newspaper that Sherwin lived in an apartment complex with his parents and had no history of criminal conduct.
