Five members of one family are dead and two more are seriously injured after a targeted shooting in southern Illinois. Two teenagers — one 15, one 16 — are now in custody.

Investigators believe at least one of the suspects is related to the people who were killed.

The East St. Louis shooting has left a community grappling with a crime that is difficult to categorize, because it did not happen at one location or, apparently, involve strangers.

What Police Have Confirmed

The Illinois State Police laid out what they know at a Sunday news conference.

The attacks occurred at three separate locations in East St. Louis — a detail that reframes this as something more deliberate than a single violent incident.

Five people were killed. Two others, also relatives, were seriously wounded.

Both suspects were taken into custody Sunday. Neither had been formally charged as of Sunday evening.

Investigators declined to discuss a possible motive.

How the Arrests Came

The break came in an unsettling way.

Brendan Kelly, director of the Illinois State Police, said the suspects were arrested Sunday morning after dispatchers received a call “related to investigating human remains.”

That is all officials would say about the sequence that led police to them.

The Victims

Police released the names of the five people killed:

• Cherie L. May, 49
• Devin D. May, 24
• Patricia A. May, 74
• Quentin L. Thompson, 21
• Shania W. Thompson, 25

Three generations, spanning ages 21 to 74.

Officials did not specify when the victims were killed, nor did they clarify exactly how they were related to one another — or to the suspects now in custody.

That silence is deliberate. In cases where a suspect is believed to be family, investigators typically hold back relational details until charges are filed.

A Community Response

Kelly did not attempt to soften what happened.

“These alleged aspects of horrific violence, taking this number of lives here in this community — it’s terrible, it’s evil, but it will not keep this city down,” he said.

The final clause was pointed. East St. Louis has long carried a reputation defined by its crime statistics, and Kelly appeared determined not to let this become another entry in that narrative.

He noted that law enforcement has been working for years to bring the city’s crime rates down — an acknowledgment of the struggle without conceding defeat to it.

The Questions That Remain

Almost everything of substance is still unknown.

Key unanswered questions include:

• What motivated the attacks?
• When did the killings actually occur?
• How are the suspects related to the victims?
• Why did the violence unfold across three separate locations?
• What role, if any, did the two surviving relatives play as witnesses?

The multi-location element is particularly striking. It suggests the attacks were not a single confrontation that escalated, but something planned and executed sequentially.

The Age Problem

Two suspects, aged 15 and 16.

That detail will inevitably shape everything that follows — legally, procedurally, and in public conversation.

Illinois law governs when minors can be charged as adults in homicide cases, and prosecutors will have to make that determination. The formal charging decision, still pending as of Sunday evening, will signal how the state intends to proceed.

For a case involving five deaths and defendants who are not yet old enough to drive without restriction, that decision carries enormous weight.

What Happens Next

Charges are expected. The investigation continues. Two people remain hospitalized.

And a family that appears to have lost five members across three generations now faces the possibility that the person responsible was one of their own.

Officials have offered no motive, and until they do, the most important question in this case remains entirely unanswered.