Investigators say the shooting on Fairwood Drive began inside a family home and ended after the suspect reentered the residence.
BERKELEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A pre-dawn shooting in Berkeley Township left four people dead and three children unharmed Tuesday, after prosecutors said a separated father killed the children’s mother and her parents before fatally shooting himself inside the family’s Bayville home.
The killings stunned neighbors not only because of the violence, but because the three children inside the house survived physically unharmed while losing both parents and two grandparents in a matter of minutes. Authorities identified the victims as Deonna Stewart, 38, Allan Russell, 61, Michelle Russell, 60, and Vaughn Stewart, 37, of Maplewood.
According to investigators, officers were called to Fairwood Drive at about 5 a.m. for a report of shots fired. When police arrived, they saw a man enter the home and then heard more gunfire, authorities said. The Ocean County Regional SWAT Team moved in and found Allan and Michelle Russell, the homeowners, dead from gunshot wounds. Officers later found Vaughn Stewart inside the residence with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to a hospital in Toms River and pronounced dead. Deonna Stewart’s body was discovered outside, about 50 yards from the house, after investigators expanded the search around the property.
Prosecutors said Deonna Stewart had been living at the Fairwood Drive address with her parents and her three children. Vaughn Stewart, the father of those children, had been living separately. Investigators said he entered the house early Tuesday, shot Allan and Michelle Russell, then chased Deonna Stewart down the street and shot her multiple times. He then went back into the house and shot himself, according to authorities. The sequence described by investigators turned a residential block into multiple crime scenes, with evidence both inside the home and along the roadside where Deonna Stewart was found.
Neighbors described being jolted awake by the gunfire. One witness told local television that the sounds at first seemed like fireworks. Another neighbor said she heard roughly six shots around 4:45 a.m., slightly before the official police timeline released later in the day, and said a doorbell camera had recorded the burst of sound. That kind of material may help investigators refine the minute-by-minute sequence of the attack, including when the shooter arrived, how long he remained outside the home, and how quickly the violence moved from the house to the street and back again.
The case also raised immediate questions about what came before the shooting. Officials publicly confirmed that Vaughn and Deonna Stewart had been living apart, but they did not say Tuesday whether there had been prior domestic complaints, court filings, restraining orders or earlier welfare concerns. In many family homicide cases, those details emerge later through police records, court documents or interviews with relatives. For now, the most concrete public facts remain the identities of the dead, the children’s survival, and the path investigators say the gunman took through and around the property.
The legal path ahead will be administrative rather than criminal. Because the suspected shooter died, there is no defendant to arraign, and no trial is expected. Even so, the investigation is far from over. Prosecutors and township police still must complete forensic testing, confirm the causes and manners of death through autopsies, document the firearm used, and prepare a final accounting of the evidence. Agencies involved in child welfare also now face the separate task of deciding the long-term care arrangements for the three children found inside the home.
By late Tuesday, officials said there was no threat to the public, and the neighborhood had begun to settle back into silence. The larger questions, though, were only beginning: what records may show about the family’s separation, whether any warning signs were missed, and when investigators will release a fuller timeline. For now, the case stands as a devastating domestic killings investigation centered on one Ocean County home and the children left behind.
Author note: Last updated March 11, 2026.