A gunman shot dead his girlfriend, three members of her family and friends, and several of her pets at a rural property near Forest Grove, Oregon, before killing himself hours later some three hours away in Washington state. Benjamin Charles Parker, 36, is believed to have murdered his girlfriend Stella Jade Kimsey, 26, along with her mother, grandmother, her best friend and the friend's partner, in what the Washington County Sheriff's Office described as a quintuple homicide. The motive remains unclear, and investigators are also examining whether Parker set a vehicle alight at the scene before fleeing.

Firefighters responding to a vehicle fire at the property on Otis Lane first discovered the bodies early on Saturday morning, alerting deputies who found five people dead along with two cats, two dogs and a third cat that later had to be euthanised. Deputies traced Parker's phone signal and used automatic licence plate recognition to locate a stolen vehicle in Enumclaw, Washington, where local police found him dead in the car from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, with a gun still in his hand. Stella's ex-partner, Devin Allys, told The Oregonian he was contacted by deputies asking about who lived on the property, which also housed sheep, chickens and goats.