Danielle Collins, 7, a White female, was found dead on December 25, 2020, inside a home near Atkins, Arkansas, alongside four female relatives. Deputies responded just after 5 p.m. to a residence on Pine Ridge Road, where they discovered the bodies of Danielle; her sisters, 10-year-old Levenah Countryman and 12-year-old Abigail Heflin; their mother, 31-year-old Jaquita Chase; and their grandmother, 61-year-old Patricia Patrick.
All five had been shot, and investigators noted that the victims were members of the same family.
Within days, the Pope County Sheriff’s Office announced that evidence collected at the scene, coupled with confirmation by the Arkansas State Crime Lab, established the case as a murder-suicide. Authorities released the victims’ names and ages but did not publicly identify which individual was the shooter or a motive for the killings, characterizing the tragedy as isolated and indicating there was no ongoing threat to the public. Because the deaths were ruled a murder-suicide, no arrests were made, and investigators did not name any suspects.
Local and national outlets chronicled the immediate aftermath and the community’s grief, noting that the family members were discovered on Christmas Day and that vigils and memorial notices followed in the days after. Public memorial pages identified Danielle and recorded that she was lost to gun violence in Atkins on December 25, 2020.
