In Muscatine, Iowa, the community gathered at a football field on Tuesday evening to pay respects to a family lost in a tragic incident of domestic violence. The somber event followed the deaths of a mother and five siblings the day before.
Muscatine Police Chief Tony Kies stood before an audience, surrounded by flowers, as the sun set. He named the victims: Lisa McFarland, 51; Dakota Whitlow, 32; Austin Harris, 29; Ryle McFarland, 20; Mark McFarland, 16; and Ryan McFarland Jr., 13.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article discusses suicide. For assistance, the U.S. national suicide and crisis lifeline is available at 988 for call or text. An online chat is available at 988lifeline.org.
Johnathan McFarland spoke at the vigil, expressing his love and grief for his mother, sister, brothers, and father, who police report carried out the killings before taking his own life. “This might hurt some people for me to say,” he stated, “but no matter what is being told to me, I will always love and miss my dad.”
Audrey Perdue, fiancée of Dakota Whitlow, also addressed the crowd. She reflected on Whitlow’s skills as a metal worker and the unfulfilled potential of all the victims. “My heart is broken as I grieve for the loss of my fiancé and the life we had planned together,” she said. “My heart breaks for everyone left behind to grieve these immeasurable losses.”
Authorities discovered four of the victims in a Muscatine residence. Muscatine, a city of approximately 24,000 people, lies around 50 miles southeast of Cedar Rapids. Later, police found the alleged perpetrator, McFarland, on a city trail, where he killed himself during a discussion with the officers, according to Kies.
Subsequently, police found two other men, believed to be relatives of McFarland, fatally shot in different locations in the city. One was found in a home, and the other at a business location. While McFarland had a criminal history, details remain undisclosed by police.
The Iowa event marked the sixth family mass killing this year, according to James Alan Fox, a criminologist managing a related database supported by The Associated Press and USA Today with Northeastern University. After a similar event near Buffalo, NY, on Monday, the total number of mass killings this year has reached 13. A mass killing involves four or more deaths in a 24-hour period, excluding the killer.
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