Dawn Dancer Morrow, a 53-year-old White woman from Summersville, West Virginia, died on February 19, 2026, in a shooting that authorities described as a double murder-suicide involving members of the same household. Published obituary information identifies her as Dawn Emily Morrow and gives her date of birth as February 9, 1973, in Huntington Beach, California. She was the daughter of Larry L. Dancer Sr. and Nancy Lee Smith Lindwedel. Morrow had worked as a certified nursing assistant and was retired at the time of her death.
The events unfolded on the evening of Thursday, February 19, at the family residence on Ashley Lane in the Tara Estates area of Summersville. At approximately 5:05 p.m., Nicholas County 911 received a report that three people with severe head trauma had been discovered inside the home. Officers from the Summersville Police Department responded along with personnel from the West Virginia State Police and the Nicholas County Sheriff’s Office.
Inside, authorities found Morrow, her mother Nancy Lindwedel, and her husband Douglas Morrow unconscious and unresponsive. All three were pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators quickly developed a preliminary sequence of events that pointed to Douglas Morrow as the person responsible for the two killings. Summersville Police Chief Brad Reed said the investigation indicated that Douglas shot his wife, Dawn, and his mother-in-law, Nancy, in the front portion of the residence. According to Reed, Douglas then went into a bedroom, where he fatally shot himself. Police therefore treated the deaths as a double murder followed by suicide rather than as an attack involving an unknown assailant.
A fourth person also lived at the residence, described by police reporting as the brother of one of the victims. He was at work when the shootings occurred and returned home later, discovering what had happened shortly after 5 p.m. and contacting 911. Police questioned him as part of the investigation, but Chief Reed said the man had been at work during the incident and did not know what might have caused Douglas Morrow to commit the shootings. Authorities specifically stated that they did not believe any other person was involved.
The West Virginia State Police Crime Scene Team was brought in to process the residence, while the Summersville Police Department continued working the case with state police assistance. The bodies of Dawn Morrow, Nancy Lindwedel and Douglas Morrow were transported to the West Virginia State Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsies. In the immediate aftermath, police described the episode as isolated and said the investigation remained open and ongoing while forensic and medical-examiner work continued.
Douglas Robert Morrow was identified as Dawn’s husband and the sole suspected killer in the publicly reported police account. He was 55 when he died at the scene. Because investigators concluded preliminarily that he killed himself after shooting Dawn and Nancy, there was no surviving suspect to arrest. Publicly available reporting located through August 2026 does not identify any additional suspect, arrest, criminal charge, indictment, trial or conviction connected to Dawn Morrow’s death. The police account instead states that no other individuals were believed to have participated in the incident, leaving Douglas Morrow as the person authorities believed responsible for both homicides.
