5 Dead In East Texas Shooting

LIVINGSTON, TEXAS — Five people — an infant, her parents and grandparents — were found dead near the East Texas town of Livingston on Monday.

Law enforcement officials told media outlets three people were found dead outside a home in an unincorporated area of the county known as Blanchard. Two more dead were found inside the home. All appear to have been shot to death, officials said.

In an evening press briefing, Chief Deputy Byron Lyons with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office identified those shot: Carlos Delaney, 74, was found dead inside the house while his wife, Lynda Delaney, 72, was found dead outside, according to officials. Ashley Delaney, 27, the elderly couple's granddaughter, was found dead outside with her 15-month-old child, Ranley, according to law enforcement authorities. Also found dead was Randy Horn, 54, Ashley's husband and the father of the infant, according to police. He was found dead inside the house, officials added.

Polk County Sheriff Kenneth Hammack wrote on social media that an emergency call was made shortly after 10:30 a.m. requesting police and an ambulance be dispatched to the 3600 block of FM 3126 in the Blanchard community of Polk County. Texas Highway Patrol troopers and sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene to discover the victims, Hammack wrote, all dead of from apparent gunshot wounds. The sheriff said a police investigation into the mass killing continues with the aid of Texas Rangers investigators.

The caller described "multiple victims of an assault," according to the sheriff. Lyons said the caller, who was in a closet at the time of the shooting, survived the massacre. She is not considered a suspect, he noted.

Lyons noted a suspect was not in custody, nor was a search for the culprit planned. Even after conveying the assessment, the chief deputy stopped short of categorizing the crime scene as a murder-suicide while citing the ongoing nature of the police investigation. However, the officer stressed the public at large was not in danger —verbiage often used by law enforcement in such incidents to suggest ensuing violence is not a random act but one solely involving victim(s) and suspect(s) who may already have known each other.

During the press briefing, Lyons was asked if police were aware of a grisly post on Randy Horn's Facebook page taken the night before the killings. The image shows a bloody-stained floor with the caption: "And this is why I can't be out in the bars at night....blood on the floor!"

"We're in the process of trying to determine if that actual pic that he took is part of our crime scene or if it took place at a location where he was last night," Lyons said in response to a reporter's question.

Citing court records, some media outlets reported that Ashley Horn filed for divorce from Randy Horn in Montgomery County, Texas, in October 2018.

Polk County is a remote region of East Texas with a population of around 50,000 residents with the city of Livingston, Texas, as the county seat. The closest major Texas is Houston, located some 75 miles to the south.

Austin Patch Editor Tony Cantú contributed to this report

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