Mass shooting again in the United States leaves 5 people dead in North Carolina 

This comes a day after the deadly mass shooting in Maine 

By Edward Era Barbacena 

The bodies of five people were discovered fatally shot at a home in southeastern North Carolina early Thursday morning, multiple outlets reported, just hours after at least 18 people were killed at two locations in Lewiston, Maine.

The five people were found dead just before 1 a.m. Thursday morning at a residential home outside the city of Clinton, roughly 50 miles east of Fayetteville, North Carolina. (Forbes has reached out to the Sampson County Sheriff’s Office for more information.)

Sampson County Sheriff Jimmy Thornton told NBC affiliate WITN the victims “are various racial and ethnic backgrounds, white, Black and Hispanic,” while WITN reported the four men and one woman range in age from their 30s to their 80s. Authorities have not released information regarding a suspect in the shooting.

The shooting in North Carolina comes as a gunman in Lewiston, Maine, opened fire on a bowling alley and a restaurant in the deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year. The death toll, which was initially reported at 16—with some reports indicating it could be as high as 22—has since been adjusted to 18, according to local officials. The shooter, identified as 40-year-old Robert Card, reportedly a National Guard firearms instructor in nearby Saco, Maine, remains at large.

598. That’s how many people have been killed in U.S. mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks shootings in which four or more people were killed or injured, not including the shooter. That tops the 545 killed in mass shootings through October 26 of last year, as well as those killed during the same period in 2021 (564) and 2020 (413).