WALLED LAKE (WWJ) – The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office says police officers shot and killed 53-year-old Igor Lanis early Sunday morning after he fatally shot his wife and dog and seriously injured one of his daughters at their home in Walled Lake.
Police said at a Sunday afternoon press conference they had not yet determined a motive in the shooting, saying Lanis had no criminal past or documented history of mental health issues, but he had “become more agitated” in recent years.
Also on Sunday a post on the QAnonCasualties subreddit page by Lanis’s other daughter claims her father had been more agitated since 2020, after falling into internet conspiracy theories. In a new Daily J, WWJ's Zach Clark identifies why conspiracy theories work and why the spell is so hard to break.
The Detroit News confirmed the post was indeed made by Lanis’s youngest daughter. She was not at home by a matter of “dumb luck,” because she was at a friend’s birthday party, according to the News.
In the Reddit post, she says her parents were “extremely loving and happy people” while she was growing up and she’d had a “special bond” with both of them.
The post notes Lanis had “verbally snapped” at his family a few times, but had never gotten physical.
“Well, at around 4 AM on September 11, he had an argument with my mother and he decided to take our guns and shoot her, my dog and my sister,” the post says.
Lanis’s 56-year-old wife died of her injuries, while his 25-year-old daughter was hospitalized and may never walk again.
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Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said during Sunday’s press conference police received a call around 4:11 a.m. Sunday from a woman who said she’d been shot by her father. Authorities weren’t able to get an address from the victim during the call, but were able to get an approximate location.
While police were having a conversation with the neighbors, they heard more gunfire.
That’s when Lanis came out of his house with a shotgun and fired at an Oakland County Sheriff’s deputy. A sheriff's deputy and a Walled Lake police officer both fired back, fatally hitting the suspect.
Bouchard said Sunday Lanis had his keys and could have been “a danger to anyone.”
Authorities then went inside and found his 25-year-old daughter trying to crawl out of the house and found his 56-year-old wife dead with multiple gunshot wounds to her back. The family dog, believed to be a Great Pyrenees, was also found dead with multiple gunshot wounds.
The sheriff’s office said in an update Monday that autopsies had been performed and confirmed both Lanis and his wife died of gunshot wounds.
The daughter’s condition had been upgraded from critical to stable following surgery.
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