‘It’s devastating’: Downstate official after nephew kills 5 BY ZACH BUCHHEIT Staff Reporter/zbuchheit@suntimes.com 
 
 Updated: 
 
 MANCHESTER, Ill. — Armed with a shotgun, a rifle and a hunting knife, the nephew of the village president of a small Downstate town burst into a home there Wednesday morning and began shooting at close range. 
 
 By the time the early morning rampage had ended, Rick Odell Smith, 43, had killed a grandmother, a young couple and two small children and seriously wounded a 6-year-old girl. 
 
 Then, in an equally inexplicable act, he carried the bleeding girl to a neighbor’s home and then sped off in his white Chevy Lumina. Police chased him on back roads to a nearby town and he was killed in a shootout, authorities said. 
 
 The slayings rocked Manchester, about 50 miles southwest of Springfield in southwestern Illinois. 
 
 The grisly tale laid out by police in this tiny town of 300 — a place where the mayor and residents couldn’t remember a murder in decades and that lacks even a stoplight — was missing one important detail: Why? 
 
 “It’s devastating, simply devastating,” said Smith’s uncle, Manchester Village President Ron Drake. 
 
 Drake said he wasn’t aware of any relations between his nephew, who was from Roodhouse, a few miles from Manchester, and the slain family. But authorities described Smith as an “acquaintance” of the victims. Police declined to offer any reasons for the slayings because the investigation was ongoing. 
 
 Asked what could have prompted Smith to kill the family, Drake said, “I couldn’t tell you. I haven’t talked to Rick in two years.” 
 
 Smith’s victims were identified as Joanne Sinclair, 67; her granddaughter, Brittany Luark, 23; Luark’s boyfriend, Roy Ralston, 29; 1-year-old Brantley Ralston, and a 5-year-old boy, whose name could not be confirmed, a law enforcement source said on condition of anonymity. The 6-year-old girl was shot several times but survived the attack and was listed in serious condition at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield. Two bodies were found in one bedroom, two in another bedroom and Ralston was found in a hallway, authorities said. Authorities would not publicly identify the family members Wednesday. 
 
 When police caught up with Smith, he got out of his car, pointed a gun at them and began firing. Police returned fire, hitting Smith, who was taken into custody at 7:27 a.m., Illinois State Police Lt. Col. Todd Kilby said. He was taken to St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, where he was pronounced dead. 
 
 A shotgun, a scoped rifle and a hunting knife, all of which appeared to belong to Smith, were recovered in the victims’ home, Kilby said. He wouldn’t say whether Smith had obtained the weapons legally. 
 
 Smith had a criminal history that included a DUI-related reckless homicide conviction and convictions for writing bad checks and possessing drug paraphernalia, Scott County State’s Attorney Michael Hill said. 
 
 Drake said he thought Smith was unemployed. 
 
 Manchester Village Clerk Peggy Renner, 62, who lives down a block from the murder scene, said Brittany Luark, one of the victims, told her recently that she was pregnant but did not say who the father was. 
 
 Renner said the family moved to the town during the past year to 18 months. They attended a back-to-school bash at the Manchester Baptist Church just before school started in 2012. 
 
 “They seemed to be real nice, but they stayed to themselves,” Renner said. Brittany “didn’t say too much, but when you talked to her, she was quiet. They all just stayed to themselves.” 
 
 Renner also said there had been police activity at the home on Sunday but she didn’t know the nature of the disturbance. 
 
 Sandra Grubb, who has lived with her farm family in Manchester since 1966, said her children attended school with Smith and that he had shown flashes of violence before. She said her daughter, now a principal at a school south of Springfield, was struck in the head with a baseball bat by Smith when they were in grade school. 
 
 Grubb said Smith and a brother were adopted and appeared to have been “severely neglected” before being taken in by his adoptive parents. 
 
 “The one boy had a pair of shoes that were probably two sizes two small for him, and his toes were practically bent over. One or the other — I don’t remember which one it was — but they were very severely neglected before they got to Manchester,” Grubb said. “They were just part of the community, had a mom and dad that loved them and tried to do the best for them.” 
 
 Roughly 250 miles southwest of Chicago, Manchester is a mostly rural, all-white town of about 300 people. The average annual income is about $24,000, with 7 percent of residents living below the poverty line. With no major establishments save a small general store, post office, city hall and two churches, Manchester maintains farming as its mainstay. Its residents travel to larger nearby towns for gas or groceries and to drop off their children at school. 
 
 The magnitude of the violence on Wednesday was a jolt to the small town, where everyone seems to knows everyone else’s business, and guns have always been used to hunt and kill deer and other game — not people. 
 
 “People that have lived in this community, they’ve never seen anything like this,” said the Rev. Robin Lyons, pastor of Manchester United Methodist Church, which Smith’s grandmother attends. “This is really a tragedy.” 
 
 “You take hurt and disillusionment and anger and any kind of instability and mix them all together, it’s a perfect storm,” he said. 
 
 Contributing: Dave McKinney ||||| Brad Teeter, whose mother-in-law and niece were among the five people fatally shot in Manchester, Ill., today discusses the crime. (Posted on: April 24, 2013) 
 
 After he shot his way into a home in the small town of Manchester, police say Rick Odell Smith gunned down a great-grandmother, a young couple and three young children. Then he did something that puzzled authorities. 
 
 
 
 He scooped up one of the children, a 6-year-old girl who was still alive, and carried her to a neighbor's home. Then he jumped into his white Chevy Lumina and sped off. Police caught up with him hours later and he died in a gunfight with officers. 
 
 
 
 State Police Lt. Col. Todd Kilby couldn't explain Smith's apparent concern for the girl. "All I have is that it was a neighbor" who took her in, he told reporters. 
 
 A source said the man told the neighbor to take her to a hospital. The neighbor called police. 
 
 
 
 The girl, Kassidy Ralston, remained in critical condition at a hospital in Springfield with facial injuries, according to family and a source. 
 
 The girl's great-grandmother, her parents and her younger brothers all died in the rampage. While oficials have not released their names, relatives identified them as Joanne Sinclair, 65, Brittany Luark, 22, her boyfriend Roy Ralston, Nolan Ralston, 5, and Brantley Ralston, 1. 
 
 Smith, 43, approached the family's home southwest of Springfield shortly before dawn, around 4:30 a.m. Police said he used a shotgun to blast through a back door, and was also armed with a hunting rifle with a scope and a large hunting knife. 
 
 Smith shot the people with the shotgun at close range, police said. 
 
 Roy Ralston was found in a hallway of the home, the two boys in a bedroom and Sinclair and Luark in another bedroom, Kilby said. 
 
 
 
 "The guy broke into the house," said Brad Teeter, Sinclair's son-in-law. "I couldn't tell you about the guy, never met him, never seen him, never talked to him. He apparently broke into the home of my wife's mother and shot everybody inside." 
 
 
 
 "I'm at a loss right now," Teeter said. 
 
 
 
 State police would not comment on a possible motive. But a neighbor said Smith had been going through a custody battle with Sinclair's daughter over their 4-year-old child. Neither she nor the girl were in the home at the time of the shooting, according to authorities and the family. 
 
 
 
 "He was under a lot of stress. ... There was a lot of problems with custody with the daughter," said a neighobor of Smith's near his home in Roodhouse. 
 
 
 
 The neighbor said Smith had lived with the woman at his home until recently. The neighbor said the two had been together for about five years. 
 
 
 
 The neighbor said Smith worked as a jack of all trades. "He did odd jobs for people, he could fix anything. He was a really hard worker," the neighbor said. 
 
 
 
 The neighbor said Smith had custody of their daughter fairly often but "I know there was a lot of friction with (her) family." 
 
 
 
 An all points bulletin was issued for Smith and he was arrested around 7:30 a.m. after a brief chase. Police said that when Smith exited his car he began shooting at police who returned fire and struck Smith. He was taken in critical condition to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead at 10:10 a.m., police said. 
 
 
 
 A Winchester woman said she turned on the police scanner at her home around 7 a.m. after learning her children's school was closed because of an emergency. She heard a police chase on the scanner and realized the shooting suspect was approaching her home. 
 
 
 
 She went outside and saw a white car cruise by, chased by about three or four police cars. After the car went by, it spun out and crashed about a half-mile away. Then she heard a volley of gunshots. 
 
 
 
 "It's a tragic thing, you don't ever think it will happen close to home," the woman said. 
 
 Manchester Village President Ron Drake, 66, said he was alerted around 4:45 a.m. by a page asking Scott County officials to respond to a multiple shooting. As he approached the scene, authorities told him the suspect was his nephew. 
 
 
 
 Drake said Smith was the son of his wife's sister and that the shootings have "devastated" the family. Drake said he had not spoken to Smith in about two years and said Smith had not spoken to his mother since August. 
 
 
 
 He said Smith was unemployed but there were no warning signs that something like this would happen. 
 
 
 
 "The last time I talked to him, he was real decent and everything," Drake said. "It's devastating, people in the community I talked to just think it's a tragedy. We have to work together and bring it back to where it was before." 
 
 
 
 "We're just going to have to press on and ask the Lord to help us go on," he said. 
 
 
 
 Police said Smith had been arrested in the past for reckless homicide, but details were not available. Drake was unaware of his nephew's criminal background. 
 
 Police said the last homicide reported in Scott County was in 1993. These are the first murders in the town of 300 in the 43 years Drake has lived there. 
 
 "I've lived here for 43 years and my wife's lived here for all of her life and there's never been a homicide." 
 
 Tribune reporter Ray Long contributed. 
 
 chicagobreaking@tribune.com 
 
 Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking
– The man who police say killed five people in Manchester, Ill., yesterday turns out to have been the one who helped save the 6-year-old girl he shot, reports the Chicago Tribune. Officials don't know why Rick Odell Smith carried the bloodied girl to a neighbor's house after his shooting spree, but he reportedly told the neighbor to take her to a hospital. She had been shot several times and is now in critical condition with facial injuries. "It's devastating, simply devastating," says Manchester Mayor Ron Drake—who happens to be Smith's uncle. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Drake hasn't talked to Smith in two years, and notes the impact the murders are having on this tiny town, home to just 300 people—and not a single stoplight.