Murder-Suicide Investigation Continues In Itawamba County

ITAWAMBA COUNTY, MISS. (WCBI)  – Two families are in mourning after a murder-suicide this weekend in Itawamba County.

It was around 11:30 Saturday morning when Emily Ison says her son Gage, woke up and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Gage went to get his pistol, he shot him in the corner trying to get his pistol,” Ison said.

Ms. Ison believes the suspect, Chris Moore came to the front door of her home on Dorsey Evergreen Road around 9 that morning and knocked on the front door. She says no one answered because all eight people, including several children and an infant, were asleep. She says Moore kicked in a back door, his shoe print still visible, came inside and waited for her son to wake up.

After the shooting, someone called 9 1 1, and all those inside the house locked themselves in a bathroom. Itawamba County Sheriff Chris Dickinson says a deputy encountered Moore as he arrived on the scene.

“They drew down on each other, obviously, no shots were fired, he retreated back into the residence and at the point became a barricade situation,” Sheriff Dickinson said.

Within 30 minutes, the sheriff says all those inside the house got out through a window. Tear gas was fired into the house, and Moore was found near the front door, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Emily Ison tells us her son Gage and Chris were friends.

She wants people to know there was no altercation, no racial issue, that led to the shooting. She says her son Gage had tried to get Chris help for his mental issues, but a situation days before the shooting changed everything.

Emily says Chris threatened to shoot Gage and his newborn baby. She says Gage told Chris he was not welcomed at the home and Emily believes that set Chris off.

“People with mental health issues, they have to be helped, my son helped him every day that he could and it still ended so tragically,” Ison said.

Chris Moore’s Mother, Monica Rucker, tells WCBI she had tried for more than a year to get help for her son’s mental health issues.

The bodies of Gage Ison and Chris Moore are being sent to the State Crime Lab for autopsies. However, Sheriff Dickinson says the crime lab has a backlog of several weeks for autopsies.