Erie Mass Shooting Victims Identified: Coroner Names 6 Adults Killed in Oct. 9 Pennsylvania Attack

Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook on Monday identified the Erie mass shooting victims, releasing the names of six adults killed in Friday evening’s devastating attack at a home on Perry Street in Erie, Pennsylvania — a murder-suicide that claimed nine lives and has left the lakefront city reeling.

The identification marks the first time officials have publicly named the Erie mass shooting victims who died in the Oct. 9 attack, one of the deadliest acts of gun violence in the region’s recent history. The victims ranged in age from 19 to 51, and included a woman who was eight months pregnant.

Table of Contents

• The Erie Mass Shooting Victims Identified
• What Happened on Perry Street on Oct. 9
• The Coroner’s Rulings: Homicides and a Suicide
• Two Children Killed Remain Unnamed
• No Motive Determined Yet
• Community Response and Support for the Families
• What Comes Next in the Investigation

The Erie Mass Shooting Victims Identified

Cook identified the six adult victims as Twila Tanner, 51; Angelina Stone, 24, who was eight months pregnant; Jonathan Stone, 19; Matthew Stone Jr., 21; Michelle Stone, 44; and Lora Roberts, 37.

He also named the suspected gunman as Matthew Stone Sr., 45, whose death was ruled a suicide.

The announcement ended days of anguished waiting for a community that has known since Friday that something terrible had happened at 722 Perry St., but had no official confirmation of who had died inside and around the modest home on the city’s east side.

Most of the Erie mass shooting victims were related to the suspected shooter. Matthew Stone Sr. and Michelle Stone were husband and wife, and Matthew Stone Jr., Jonathan Stone, and Angelina Stone were their children, according to Erie police. All of the Stone family members lived at the Perry Street address where the shooting took place.

Two of the Erie mass shooting victims were not relatives. Tanner was described by police as a family friend, and Roberts was the sister of Michelle Stone, according to authorities. Both women lived elsewhere in the city.

Officials had withheld the names for two days while Cook’s office worked to notify relatives of the Erie mass shooting victims, a delay that frustrated many in Erie but one the coroner defended as necessary. Releasing the names of the Erie mass shooting victims before families had been told, Cook said, would have compounded the trauma.

What Happened on Perry Street on Oct. 9

The violence began in the late afternoon on Friday. The city’s ShotSpotter gunshot-detection system and multiple 911 calls alerted the Erie Bureau of Police to the 700 block of Perry Street at about 4:53 p.m., officials said. Officers arrived at the scene within three minutes.

What they found was chaos. Two women — later identified as Tanner and Roberts — lay fatally wounded in the street outside the home.

Police then surrounded the house, and a tense standoff followed. SWAT teams deployed, officers sent in a drone and a robotic device to assess the rooms inside, and breached doors. Residents in the surrounding neighborhood reported hearing what sounded like additional gunfire during the operation, but police later clarified that those sounds were flash-bang devices used by the tactical team.

When officers finally entered the residence hours later, they discovered a scene Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah would later describe as horrific.

Six more people were found dead inside the home — and the suspected gunman, Matthew Stone Sr., was found dead with what investigators described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A .40-caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.

Inside the house, officers found a 5-year-old boy and a girl who was one year and ten months old on the first floor. On the second floor and in a stairwell, they found four more victims: a 24-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant, a 44-year-old woman, and two young men, ages 19 and 21. Police said every victim found inside the residence had lived there.

Reviewing surveillance footage from a neighboring home, investigators reconstructed the sequence of events. Chief Lorah said the suspected shooter killed six people inside the house, then went outside — where he encountered the two women who had arrived at the scene in what Lorah described as a state of distress — and shot them before reentering the home and turning the gun on himself.

All of the shots were fired before police arrived, according to investigators.

The Coroner’s Rulings: Homicides and a Suicide

On Saturday, Oct. 10, Cook delivered his official rulings on the deaths. He classified the deaths of the eight shooting victims — six adults and two children — as homicides. He also ruled the death of Angelina Stone’s unborn child a homicide. The death of Matthew Stone Sr. was ruled a suicide.

The coroner’s accounting means the attack effectively took ten lives, counting the unborn child, though officials have consistently described the incident as claiming nine people: the eight people shot and killed, plus the suspected shooter.

All but one of the shooting victims were pronounced dead at the scene on the evening of Oct. 9. Lora Roberts was taken from the scene to a hospital and was pronounced dead there at 5:39 p.m. on Oct. 9, according to Cook.

Cook said no autopsies will be performed on any of the victims or the suspected gunman.

For the verified early reporting on the case, see USA TODAY’s coverage of the identification.

Two Children Killed Remain Unnamed

While the adult Erie mass shooting victims have now been publicly identified, the two youngest victims remain unnamed. Cook said he is not permitted to release the names of the two children — a 5-year-old boy and a girl who was one year and ten months old — because they are under 18. Erie police also declined to release the children’s names.

Authorities confirmed the two children were Angelina Stone’s kids, making them the suspected shooter’s grandchildren. Both lived at the Perry Street home.

The decision to withhold the children’s names is consistent with standard practice for minor victims, but it has added to the anguish for a community already struggling to process the scale of the loss.

No Motive Determined Yet

Police are treating the shooting as a domestic incident, because so many of the victims were related and lived in the same home. But investigators say they have not determined a motive.

Chief Lorah said investigators were considering whether mental health played a role in the attack, but he cautioned that it was far too early to draw conclusions. “It was horrific,” Lorah said of the scene officers encountered. “It was the worst scene I have ever experienced.”

Erie Mayor Daria Devlin said at a news conference that information about the Erie mass shooting victims’ identities would be released by the coroner’s office — a promise fulfilled with Monday’s announcement.

The lack of answers about why the Erie mass shooting victims were targeted has left neighbors and community members searching for explanations. Eight of the nine people who died were related to the suspected shooter, underscoring the deeply personal nature of the tragedy.

Community Response and Support for the Families

In the days since the shooting, Erie residents have begun to rally around the surviving relatives of the Erie mass shooting victims. Online tributes and fundraising campaigns emerged over the weekend to help with funeral expenses and to support the family members left behind.

According to tributes shared online, Tanner and Roberts had rushed to the Perry Street home in a desperate attempt to help. Roberts was the aunt of Angelina Stone — her sister was the victims’ mother, Michelle Stone — and Tanner was a longtime family friend. Both women were shot outside the house after arriving at the scene.

The details of their final moments — arriving to help loved ones in distress — have resonated deeply in the community. Neighbors have left flowers and candles near the scene, and local faith leaders have called for prayer and solidarity as the city grieves.

Erie, a city of roughly 94,000 on the shores of Lake Erie, is no stranger to economic hardship, but residents say the scale of this violence is unlike anything the community has experienced. The shooting has drawn national attention to a city that rarely makes national headlines.

Law enforcement officials have urged the public to give the families of the Erie mass shooting victims space as they grieve, and to allow investigators the time they need to complete their work.

What Comes Next in the Investigation

With the Erie mass shooting victims now publicly identified, the investigation enters its next phase. Erie police continue to piece together the circumstances surrounding the attack, including what led Matthew Stone Sr. to commit the killings.

Key questions remain unanswered. Investigators have not said what the .40-caliber handgun’s history was, whether there had been prior calls for help or domestic disturbances at the Perry Street home, or whether the suspected shooter had shown warning signs in the days before the attack.

The bodies of the Erie mass shooting victims have been released to funeral homes by the coroner’s office, and funeral arrangements are expected to be announced by the families in the coming days.

For Americans following the case, the tragedy is a stark reminder of the human cost of domestic gun violence. It also underscores the value of thorough, sensitive official communication: the coroner’s decision to withhold names until families were notified, while painful for the public, followed standard practice for mass-casualty events.

StateLineDaily has previously covered major law enforcement responses to threats of violence in the United States, including the FBI’s thwarted terror plot at the Mall of America, where federal agents likewise moved quickly to protect the public.

This is a developing story. StateLineDaily will continue to update this article as investigators release more information about the Erie shooting.