How Could You? Hall of Shame-Kazakh Adoptees Quinn and Tory Carlson case-Child Deaths UPDATED

By on 2-28-2016 in Abuse in adoption, David Wayne Campbell, How could you? Hall of Shame, International Adoption, Kazakhstan, Quinn and Tory Carlson, Washington

How Could You? Hall of Shame-Kazakh Adoptees Quinn and Tory Carlson case-Child Deaths UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Belfair, Washington, Russian Kazakh Adoptees Quinn Carlson,16, and Tory Carlson,18, were shot and killed by their stepfather 51-year-old David Wayne Campbell.

“Five people are dead, including a suspect, after an hours-long standoff in Mason County between authorities and a man who claimed he shot his family.

On Saturday, Mason County Coroner Wes Stockwell released the identity of the shooter and three of the four victims.

The shooter was 51-year-old David Wayne Campbell of Belfair. Three of the victims were Lana J. Carlson, 49, Quinn Carlson, 16, and Tory Carlson, 18.

Tory was a culinary arts student at Bremerton’s Olympic College.

A friend of Tory’s from school, Marlene Lucille, shared photographs of Tory, writing: “Tory was an amazing person!!! He was an aspiring chef that wanted nothing more than to go work for himself to help provide for his family. He has a kind soul and made friends with everyone he came in contact with.”

Patrick Johnstad, Lana’s brother, struggled to retain his composure Saturday with members of his grieving family by his side.

“This shocked all of us just as much as it did the community,” he said.

Johnstad described Lana as a generous person who cared about everyone she met.

“She didn’t care who you were,” said Johnstad. “She would love you no matter what.  She didn’t care what your color was. How tall you were or what you were missing, it didn’t matter.  She loved everyone equally. She was a great woman.”

The Mason County sheriff says Lana’s husband, David Wayne Campbell, called them Friday morning.  He said he had killed four people in his family and that he had a gun to his own head.

Johnstad says they never saw the tragedy coming.

“As far as we knew,” he said. “[Lana] was happy.”

Olympic College released a statement offering their sympathies to all affected by the tragic loss of life.

“Tory was passionate about the culinary field and had plans to partner with his mom to operate a food truck,” said Culinary Arts Professor Christopher Plemmons. “He was a very kind student. He cared about his classmates and his classmates cared about him.”

The fourth victim in Belfair will not be identified until next of kin is notified.

A 12-year-old girl escaped from the rural home after what the sheriff called a “horrific tragedy.”

Key developments: 

  • A call prompted a welfare check at the home off Northeast Horseshoe Drive
  • Sheriff deputies found a man in a house with a gun
  • The man said he shot his wife and kids
  • The sheriff’s department confirms four people and suspect is dead
  • One child, 12-year-old girl, escaped

What we know about the shootout 

Authorities first report that the man called 911 at 9:37 a.m. Friday, saying he shot his wife and children and was holding a gun to his head.

Mason County Chief Deputy Ryan Spurling clarified how authorities were notified of the shooting. He says the gunman called an officer he had dealt with in the past.

A welfare check was requested.

 

Mid-standoff, the sheriff’s office said a child was taken from outside the house alive after she escaped. Authorities initially said she was taken to the hospital for evaluation.

KIRO 7 Chopper video showed someone being led to an ambulance, but it’s unclear if it was the child.

Authorities negotiated with the man for about three hours before a SWAT team entered the home near Belfair, about 25 miles southwest of Seattle, and found the people dead.

The victims were found in a chicken coop outside of the home.

The suspect walked outside and shot himself in front of law enforcement around 1 p.m.

 

 

“It’s a terrible tragedy,” said Sheriff Casey Salisbury. “It’s just as tragic I think for law enforcement and the emergency service workers that are up there as well.”

Friday’s incident is being called being called the worst mass killing in this area in more than 80 years.

The child who escaped is related to the victims, according to The Associated Press. Mason County Chief

Deputy Spurling says the girl who survived was taken to a hospital for an evaluation Friday.

Neighbor Jack Pigott told The Associated Press that the couple who lived in the house had been married for four to five years. He says the wife had two teenage sons who were adopted from Russia during a previous marriage. She also had a daughter who was adopted from China.

Pigott says the husband had a heating and air conditioning contractor business.

Neighbors heard gunshots the night before

One woman told KIRO 7 News she heard “lots of shooting” on Thursday night.

 

Pigott told The Associated Press that he also heard gunfire Thursday night but none Friday.

A woman identified as a family friend rushed to the scene telling investigators her husband had just visited the home last night. She left without speaking to reporters.”

Family devastated after Belfair Murder-suicide [Kiro 7 2/28/16 by Deborah Horne]

“On Friday, an unknown man in the state of Washington called the police and reported that he had shot two children, a woman and another person. The man shot himself hours after police had arrived. One child managed to escape, the girl has been hospitalized. According to media reports, two adopted children from Russia are likely to be among the victims of the incident.

“We are greatly concerned about the media reports that a US adoptive father shot two adopted children from Russia. Now we are checking the information,” Konstantin Dolgov posted to Twitter.

The Russian Federation Council, or the upper house of the country’s parliament, has also said it is monitoring the developments of the investigation on the shooting.

Since January 2013, US citizens are banned from the adoption of Russian children under the law, which also marked the withdrawal of Moscow from a US-Russian agreement on cooperation in child adoptions concluded in 2011.

The measure is also known as the Dima Yakovlev Law, named after a Russian toddler who died in the United States in 2008 after being locked in a car by his adoptive father, a US citizen.”

Russia Checking if Two Adopted Kids Among US Shooting Victims

[Sputnik News 2/27/16]

“A former employee of a man believed to have killed four people and himself Friday in remote Mason County described him as volatile.

Joe Gallegos of East Bremerton said he took out a restraining order against David Wayne Campbell in July after Campbell pulled a pistol on him during an argument.

The Mason County Coroner’s Office identified Campbell, 51, as the man who shot himself in the presence of law enforcement after an hourslong standoff with a SWAT team from the Mason County Sheriff’s Office.

Three of the dead found in an outbuilding on the property were identified as Campbell’s wife, Lana J. Carlson, 49, and her children Quinn Carlson, 16, and Tory Carlson, 18. A female neighbor who was found shot at the home has not yet been identified because next of kin hasn’t been notified.

A 12-year-old daughter escaped the incident just as police arrived, according to deputies. They used an armored vehicle to pick her up and bring her safely past the home. She left the scene in an ambulance. Deputies said she was not shot and did not have life-threatening injuries.

Gallegos, 49, said he worked for Campbell Family Heating and Cooling from October 2014 to July 2015. In July, he and Campbell got in an argument in Gallegos’ driveway.

“He pulled a pistol out on me and told me he could kill me any time he wanted to,” Gallegos said.

On Friday morning, Campbell called a sheriff’s office supervisor he had previous contact with and told him he had killed family members and was suicidal, Chief Deputy Ryan Spurling said. Deputies responded to the home in the 300 block of Horseshoe Drive. Negotiators tried for 3 1/2 hours to persuade Campbell to surrender, but “it became evident that the suspect was not going to leave the residence voluntarily,” the sheriff’s office said.

Deputies could see him pacing inside, often holding a handgun to his head. After they shot tear gas into the house, Campbell came outside with a gun in his hand and yelled at them. He returned indoors before coming out once more, just after 12:30 p.m., putting the gun to his temple and firing as police watched.

Authorities said they found the four other bodies in a chicken coop.

Campbell and Carlson were married in November 2009, King County records show. She had been a stay-at-home mom, home-schooled all of the children. She was planning to operate a food truck and had registered a business called Crispy Edges. She had been fixing up the truck, but hadn’t secured the county permits needed to operate it.

Adeline Peebles, a family friend who lived up the street from where the family lived, would often come over for dinner and to taste Carlson’s ideas for the truck. She said the children were all adopted during Carlson’s previous marriage. The boys came from Russia and the girl from China.

Peebles said Tory Carlson was a student at Olympic College.

He was “a great kid who never talked back and always worked hard,” she said.

Olympic College reported Sunday that Tory was in his second year at the college and on track to graduate from the Culinary Arts program this spring. The college is providing counseling and support to Tory’s teachers and classmates.

“Tory was passionate about the culinary field and had plans to partner with his mom to operate a food truck,” said Culinary Arts Professor Christopher Plemmons. “He was a very kind student. He cared about his classmates and his classmates cared about him.”

Peebles said she had been with the family the night before and that she visited the family often on weekends and the holidays, even moving to the area to be closer to them.

“I can’t believe this,” she said, while visiting the scene of the shooting on Friday.

The scene, near the end of 2.5 miles of dirt roads, was quiet Saturday morning except for dogs barking, roosters crowing and ducks squawking. A Mason County Animal Control pickup was the only official vehicle on site. Yellow crime scene tape remained around the wooded property. Family members moved about the old green mobile home. Three family members who walked toward the home “to square things away” declined to talk.

The Mason County Coroner’s Office will begin to conduct autopsies Monday in Kitsap County, Spurling said. Several agencies participated in the response. They’ll meet Monday and pool their information to try to determine what led to the incident.

“The investigation is going on,” Spurling said. “We may never know the details and motive because (the 12-year-old girl) is the only surviving person. She may or may never be able to describe what happened.”

Investigators are discovering that Campbell had a checkered past.

“This was an evil person with an extensive criminal history,” Spurling said. “There are things that will come out that will shock everybody.””

Story of Belfair shooting begins to unfold [Kitsap Sun 2/27/16 by Ed Friedrich]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Accountability2

Update:“On Friday, a man living outside of the town of Belfair in Mason County, Washington, called the police and reported that he had shot two children, a woman and another person. The man shot himself hours after police had arrived. Preliminary information alleged that the two teenagers may have been adopted in Russia. Later reports claimed the teenagers may have been born in Kazakhstan.

“It is confirmed that the victims of the tragedy, 16 and 18 years old, were adopted in Kazakhstan by US citizens, but were registered with the embassy of our country.[???] In this regard, the specific circumstances of their adoption need to be clarified,” the statement said.

Since, according to the Kazakh law, the older boy had reached the age of majority, he had to have chosen between the US and Kazakh citizenship. However, no data on his choice was immediately available, the commissioner’s office said.

“The human rights commissioner’s office is in working contact with the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Education’s Committee for the Protection of Children’s Rights and other concerned departments,” the statement added.

On Saturday, Deputy Sheriff of Mason County Ryan Spurling said earlier that the killed children may have stemmed from Kazakhstan, while the county’s Coroner Jane Pentz told Sputnik that, according to police, the boys were of Russian nationality.

Later in the day, Dan Reeber, US State Department representative responsible for diplomatic security matters in Seattle told Sputnik that the State Department could not confirm the citizenship of the two killed boys.”

 

Kazakh Human Rights Commissioner Confirms 2 Teenagers Killed in US
 [Sputnik 02/29/16]

“A man who shot three family members, a neighbor and then himself in a rural area near Belfair, Mason County, had an extensive criminal history, including felony charges that would have made it illegal for him to possess firearms.

David Wayne Campbell, 51, had misdemeanor and felony convictions in Pennsylvania dating to 1996, according to an Associated Press review of court records. He was charged with multiple crimes, mostly related to bad checks, stolen property and forgery.

He served time in prison starting in 2000 on a charge of theft by deception. It was not immediately clear when he moved from the East Coast to Washington state.

Mason County sheriff’s Chief Deputy Ryan Spurling said Monday that he heard about Campbell’s criminal history but had not yet seen the records.
Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives went to the home in a remote, wooded area where Campbell lived with his wife and her adopted children and were conducting an investigation into Campbell’s firearms, Spurling said.

Campbell had a handgun and a “long gun,” but Spurling didn’t know the model and didn’t know how he acquired the firearms, given his previous convictions.

Authorities are focusing on “taking care of the living victim,” Spurling said. A 12-year-old girl found Friday on the property was taken to the hospital for an evaluation and is now in the custody of child welfare officials, he said. Her relation to the other victims has not been released.

“She may or may not be able to tell us what happened,” Spurling said.

Campbell called a sheriff’s office supervisor Friday to say he had shot four people and was suicidal. After hours of negotiations, police tried to flush Campbell out of the house with tear gas, but when he stepped outside, he shot himself in the head, officials said.

Authorities searched the buildings on the property and found the bodies of Campbell’s wife, Lana J. Carlson, 49, and her two adopted sons, Quinn, 16, and Tory, 18. Carlson adopted the boys from Kazakhstan during a previous marriage, authorities said Monday.

Also killed and found in a chicken coop was neighbor Donna Reed, 68, the coroner said.

Reed was a widow who lived alone “with her cats,” another neighbor, Jack Pigott, told The Associated Press. Pigott said Campbell used to keep her supplied with cigarettes.

Pigott said he heard the sound of gunshots coming from the direction of the Campbell house Thursday night, but he wasn’t concerned because they often practiced target shooting.

Autopsies are under way so authorities don’t yet have the time of death for the victims, Spurling said.

Campbell’s most recent conviction was nearly 16 years ago. On Aug. 15, 2000, he was charged with 18 counts: six counts each of theft by deception, receiving stolen property and bad checks. He pleaded guilty to one theft charge and the other counts were dismissed. He was sentenced to two to five years in prison, records show.

Campbell also faced similar charges in 1996 and 1997. In one 1996 case, he was charged with 31 counts, including 12 felony forgery charges. He pleaded guilty to six of those charges, and the others were dismissed.

Messages seeking comment from the prosecutor and lawyer involved in those cases were not immediately returned.”

Man who killed 4 in Mason County had long criminal history [Seattle Times 2/29/16 by Martha Bellisle]

Update 2: “Officials from the Mason County sheriff’s office says they’re eager to finally sit down with the lone surviving family member of last week’s tragedy in Belfair to try to shed some light on why David Campbell killed his wife, two sons and a neighbor before taking his own life.

Campbell used a gun that belonged to his wife’s former husband, and it’s a gun he shouldn’t have had.

“This was a career criminal that killed four people, victimized a fifth and then shot himself,” said chief criminal deputy Ryan Spurling.

The sheriff’s office said last Friday was a tragic day in the rural community of Belfair. After receiving a call from a man believed to be Campbell saying he’d shot four people, deputies arrived and found Cambpell’s wife, Lana Carlson, two sons Tory and Quinn, and neighbor Donna Reed. They’d all been rounded up in one location and shot.

“It appears it was an execution style in the chicken coop,” Spurling said.

But before they could find out why he killed his family, Campbell took his own life. But he spared his 12-year-old daughter, who was adopted from China. Detectives are waiting for matters to calm down before talking with her.

“Whether she has recall or whether she’s even able to express what happened or whether she even saw it,” Spurling said.

Why did Campbell have access to this weapon in the first place? Last summer he was served with a anti-harrassment order from a former employee. The Kitsap County court ordered him to surrender all weapons in his possession. But it’s done on the honor system.

“The suspect submitted to the Kitsap County courthouse a notice of non-surrender on July 27th declaring that he had no weapons to surrender,” Spurling said.

The sheriff’s office says it didn’t raise to the level of allowing them to check.

“Once he completes that declaration we don’t have any basis, a legal basis, to go in and pursue that,” said Undersheriff Jim Barrett.

The sheriff’s office says the gun used in the shootings belonged to the Lana’s ex-husband.

“Would you please keep the surviving little girl in your thoughts and your prayers as we move forward along with the family,” said Sheriff Casey Salisbury.

The deaths unleashed an international firestorm because at first the two sons were reported to have been adopted from Russia.

“We actually had the Russian consulate, two individuals, show up on our door step at the sheriff’s office on Saturday,” Spurling said.

Neighbors said they thought Tory and Quinn were adopted from Russia by Lana before she married Campbell. Russia has since stopped international adoptions and Russian authorities and media demanded answers from the sheriff’s office.

But it was then determined the boys came from Kazakhstan.

“Once we put out that it was confirmed from the department of State that the two victims, young men, were adopted from Kazakhstan we have not received the volume of calls,” Spurling said.

The sheriff’s office says it didn’t need the international distraction when trying to get to the bottom of such a local tragedy.”

Many questions remain in wake of Belfair tragedy [KOMO News 3/1/16 by Keith Eldridge]

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