Mom posts online about mass shooting, then learns her 2 children were among the victims: Report

The mother of a brother and sister killed in Saturday’s shooting spree in Louisiana reportedly posted about the news on social media before realizing her children were among the five victims.

According to WAFB, Rhonda Champagne saw a post about the shooting and reposted it to her Facebook profile before learning her daughter and son, Summer Ernest, 20, and Tanner Ernest, 17, were shot and killed along with their father, Billy Ernest, 43, at his Livingston Parish home. The accused shooter, Dakota Theriot, 21, then allegedly then drove to the home of his parents, Elizabeth Theriot and Keith Theriot, both 50, in Ascension Parish and fatally shot them before fleeing the state.

“We was able to get a dying declaration from him [Keith] – only enough information to let us know that it was his son that committed this act,” Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office Sheriff Bobby Webre said, according to CBS News.

According to The Advocate, Theriot and Summer had begun dating two weeks earlier and he immediately moved in with the Ernests. Theriot was reportedly kicked out of his parents’ home prior to moving in.

Authorities have yet to disclose a possible motive in the quintuple homicide.

Tanner Ernest and Champagne’s other teen son reportedly lived with her most of the time but the brothers were visiting their father this past weekend. Tanner’s brother wasn’t home when the shooting occurred, according to the newspaper.

Champagne told WAFB that she was at her mother’s home when she learned of her children’s deaths.

“I got outside, a truck pulls up and a man says, ‘are you Rhonda?’,” she recalled.

Police reportedly apprehended Theriot in Virginia the morning after the spree shooting. CBS News reported that he is currently being held without bond at the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Virginia. An extradition hearing scheduled for Friday will determine whether he’ll be sent back to Louisiana, where he faces five counts of murder.

[Featured image: Summer Ernest, Tanner Ernest/GoFundMe]