 After he shot his way into a home Wednesday in the small central Illinois town of Manchester, Rick Odell Smith gunned down a great-grandmother, a young couple and three young children, police said. 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. The slayings rocked Manchester, about 50 miles southwest of Springfield in southwestern Illinois. Manchester Village President Ron Drake said he was alerted about 4:45 a.m. by an electronic page asking Scott County officials to respond to a multiple shooting. 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. 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. 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. When Smith got out of his car, he began shooting at police, who returned fire, hitting Smith, police said. 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 in critical condition to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:10 a.m., police said. 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. 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, 66, said Smith was the son of his wife's sister and that the shootings have devastated the family. 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. "The last time I talked to him, he was real decent and everything," Drake said. Grubb said Smith and a brother were adopted and appeared to have been “severely neglected” before being taken in by his adoptive parents. “People that have lived in this community, they’ve never seen anything like this,” said the Rev.
– 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.