Shaun Dawson Bumgarner was a 7-year-old White male whose life ended in a devastating act of family violence on December 8, 2020, at his home on Flynn’s Creek Road near Williamsburg, West Virginia. Shaun was a second-grade student at Frankford Elementary School who enjoyed playing T-ball, climbing trees and learning about space. He reportedly dreamed of becoming an astronaut.
He and the other children in the household were affectionately known by relatives and friends as “Team Shark.”
The tragedy initially appeared to be a catastrophic residential fire. At approximately 3:30 that afternoon, emergency responders were dispatched to the rural Greenbrier County property after the two-story home was reported engulfed in flames. Firefighters from Williamsburg and several neighboring departments arrived to find the residence heavily damaged and eventually burned nearly to the ground. As crews searched the property, they discovered the body of 25-year-old Oreanna Antoinette Myers outside near a picnic table. A shotgun was found beside her.
Inside the ruins, investigators found the remains of Shaun and four other children: his brother Riley James Bumgarner and Kian Matthew Myers, Aarikyle Nova Myers and Haiken Jirachi Myers. Because of the extensive fire damage, the recovery and identification process took several days. Early reports focused on the blaze and did not immediately reveal how the victims had died. All six bodies were taken to the West Virginia State Medical Examiner’s Office as investigators from the Greenbrier County Sheriff’s Office, West Virginia State Police and the state Fire Marshal’s Office worked to reconstruct what had happened before the home burned.
The investigation ultimately established that the children had not been killed by the fire. Greenbrier County Sheriff Bruce Sloan announced in January 2021 that Myers, who was the biological mother of three of the children and the stepmother of Shaun and Riley, had fatally shot all five children with a. 410-gauge single-shot shotgun. Investigators concluded that she then deliberately set the house on fire, walked outside and used the same weapon to take her own life. Shaun and the other children were therefore already dead before flames consumed the residence.
Authorities found several handwritten notes left by Myers, including messages inside the family’s vehicle. In the writings, she accepted responsibility for the killings and described struggling with what she characterized as mental-health problems and inner “demons.” One note contained a direct account of shooting the boys, setting the house ablaze and intending to shoot herself. Other messages apologized to her husband, Brian Bumgarner, and stated that no one else was responsible for what she had done.
Investigators learned that Brian had been away from the residence during portions of the days leading up to the killings. After a vehicle accident left the family without dependable transportation, he had reportedly stayed with relatives so he could obtain rides to work. Myers had expressed anger and distress over his absence, but authorities said they could not determine with certainty why she chose to murder the children. Nothing uncovered during the investigation indicated that Brian participated in the shootings or the fire.
Because Myers died at the scene, she could not be arrested, formally prosecuted or brought to trial. No surviving accomplice was identified, and no other person was charged with Shaun’s murder. The Greenbrier County Sheriff’s Office closed the criminal investigation as a murder-suicide after determining that Myers alone was responsible for killing all five children and setting the fire.
The deaths later prompted questions about whether earlier warnings involving the household had been adequately handled by West Virginia’s child-protection system. During legislative discussions held around the first anniversary of the killings, lawmakers heard concerns about a prior referral involving one of the children and whether authorities had missed an opportunity to investigate possible danger in the home. Later civil allegations also claimed that state officials had received reports concerning the children’s welfare before the massacre. Those proceedings did not change the criminal finding that Myers carried out the killings, but they deepened public scrutiny over whether the tragedy might have been prevented.
Shaun was remembered apart from the violence that took him. His obituary described an active, curious child who loved sports, outdoor adventures and the mysteries of space. A joint service was held for several of the children at Morgan Funeral Home in Lewisburg as their family, school and community mourned a loss that had first emerged as news of a terrible fire and was later revealed to be a deliberate killing of five young children by someone entrusted with their care.
