‘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 ||||| 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 he did something that puzzled authorities. 
 
 Smith 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 sedan and sped off. Police caught up with him hours later, and he died in a gunfight with officers, authorities said. 
 
 State Police Lt. Col. Todd Kilby said he couldn't explain Smith's apparent concern for the girl. "All I have is that it was a neighbor" who took her in, he said. 
 
 A source said the man told the neighbor to take her to a hospital. The neighbor called police. 
 
 The girl, Kassidy Ralston, was in critical condition at a hospital in Springfield with facial injuries, family members said. 
 
 The girl's great-grandmother, her parents and her younger brothers died in the rampage. Officials identified the victims this morning as JoAnn Sinclair, 66; Brittney Luark, 23; her boyfriend, James Roy Ralston, 29; Nolan James Ralston, 5; and Brantley Jack Ralston, 1. 
 
 The Scott County Coroner said on Thursday that Luark was pregnant, according to state police. 
 
 Smith, 43, approached the family's home southwest of Springfield about 4:30 a.m., police said, and used a shotgun to blast through a back door. He was also armed with a hunting rifle with a scope and a large hunting knife, police said. 
 
 Smith shot the victims 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." 
 
 State police would not comment on a possible motive. But a neighbor who asked not to be identified said Smith had been going through a custody battle with Sinclair's daughter over their 4-year-old child. Neither the girl nor her mother were in the home at the time of the shooting, authorities said. 
 
 "He was under a lot of stress. ... There were a lot of problems with custody with the daughter," said a neighbor of Smith's in nearby Roodhouse. 
 
 Smith had lived with the woman at his home until recently, said the neighbor, adding that the two had been together for about five years. 
 
 Smith worked as a jack of all trades, the neighbor said. "He did odd jobs for people. He could fix anything. He was a really hard worker," the neighbor said. 
 
 After the shootings, an all-points bulletin was issued for Smith, who was stopped by police about 7:30 a.m. after a brief chase, police said. When Smith got out of his car, he began shooting at police, who returned fire, hitting Smith, police said. He was taken in critical condition to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:10 a.m., police said. 
 
 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. As he neared the scene, Drake was told the suspect was his nephew. 
 
 Drake, 66, 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 that Smith had not spoken to his mother since August. 
 
 Smith was unemployed, but there were no signs that something like this would happen, Drake said. 
 
 "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." 
 
 Smith had been arrested in the past on charges of reckless homicide, but details were not available, police said. Drake said he was unaware of his nephew's criminal background. 
 
 The last homicide reported in Scott County was in 1993, police said. These are the first slayings in Manchester, a town of 300, Drake said. 
 
 "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. 
 
 csadovi@tribune.com 
 
 rguerrero@tribune.com
– 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.