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.
Kristopher and Amanda Karolkiewicz and their six children, aged 5 to 15, died Friday 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.
“The investigation shows that this was a murder-suicide,” Capt. Jacob Sparks wrote.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.
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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. The family's pets perished in the blaze.
Messages seeking comment were sent Monday to the couple's relatives.
Kris Karolkiewicz was 47; his wife, who went by Mandy, was 39.
The couple met at work at a beverage company in 2008 and began dating that summer, according to a parenting-oriented blog that Mandy Karolkiewicz kept over a decade ago.
Their first child was born on April 25, 2011, which she hailed as “the best day of my life (so far).” Two more sons followed over the next four years, as she shifted from a banking job to a part-time position at a local insurance agency and later stopped working outside the home. The couple was planning to adopt more children at the time.
The blog frequently expressed her Christian faith, her joy in the family and her love and appreciation for her husband and his parenting. “My kids have that actual example of a selfless, Christ-like father,” she wrote in 2015.
Kris Karolkiewicz, too, hailed their life together: “I’m a very lucky guy,” he wrote in a 2019 Facebook post ahead of their 10th anniversary.
Recently, Mandy Karolkiewicz was a substitute teacher at an elementary school, earning praise for going “above and beyond for students, especially when they’re having a hard day, responding with empathy, patience, and care,” as the local school district put it in a Facebook post in January. A message seeking comment was sent Monday to the Grand Haven Area Public Schools system, which — without identifying anyone — exhorted the public in a post Friday to “avoid speculation” about the deaths.
Although her blog ended in 2016, Mandy Karolkiewicz continued sharing updates on her family and activities in TikTok videos, including clips of a trip to China earlier this month with two of her children.
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Peltz reported from New York and Collins from Hartford, Conn.
