Family of 5 found dead in North Carolina home: All died of single gunshot wounds

VANCEBORO, N.C. – A family of five and their dog were found dead in their home Friday.

According to District Attorney Scott Thomas, Craven County sheriff’s investigators found the victims in Vanceboro, about 114 miles southeast of Raleigh.

Craven County Sheriff Chip Hughes, speaking to WCTI, identified the couple as Michael Jay, 39, and April Ireland, 26, and said the ages of the children were 8 months, 3 and 4 years old.

A family member requested a welfare check, and when authorities arrived at 12 p.m. Friday and checked the home, an officer could see a body through a partially opened curtain, officials said during a news conference Monday morning after the release of preliminary autopsy results.

Hughes said each person died of a single gunshot wound, and only Michael Ireland’s was self-inflicted. Hughes said April Ireland and the three children were found on the family couch and Michael Ireland’s body was found in the bedroom with the dog.

The family member who requested the welfare check had not had contact with the family since Wednesday evening.

Neighbors, who declined to be identified, said the couple had two young sons and an infant girl.

They reported the couple frequently fought. One man, several doors down, said he could sometimes hear them shouting at each other. Another neighbor said, “They argued a lot. Last week was the last time I heard it.” She said she opened her kitchen window and “I could hear her shouting and screaming.”

The Irelands moved into the cul de sac in 2016, she said. “They’ve been arguing since then.”

Michael Ireland, whom neighbors said went by his middle name, Jay, was in a Norfolk, Virginia hospital last September, fighting with a clogged tracheotomy, according to a Facebook post by his wife. “It’s pretty much like watching the person you love most in the world besides your kids drowning over and over again,” she wrote.

On Aug. 29, 2019, April started a GoFundMe campaign to assist her husband whom she said “suffered severely from depression among other mental illnesses and was recently injured very badly” from a “self inflicted” wound. The site raised $130 of a $10,000 goal.

Michael Ireland’s Facebook page displayed several pictures of him with his children and the family dog, a pitbull.

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This article originally appeared on Sun Journal: Family of five found dead in their Vanceboro, North Carolina, home