Thanksgiving disaster

Thanksgiving started out like any other at the Sitton residence in Jupiter, Fla.

The family finished dinner around 9:45 p.m. and began packing up leftovers when 35-year-old Paul Merhige stepped outside briefly.

When Merhige came back in the house, family members said that he started shooting.

Merhige immediately killed his twin sisters, Lisa Knight and Carla Mehrige, both 33. Knight was pregnant, and her baby died as well. Then Merhige turned the gun on his 79-year-old aunt, Raymonde Joseph.

It didn’t end there.

Little 6-year-old Makayla Sitton was asleep in her bed when Mehrige burst into her room, and shot her five times. Two of those shots went through her heart and her head.

"He didn't even know Makayla," said Jim Sitton, Makayla’s father, in an interview with The Palm Beach Post. "He purposely walked down the hallway, opened her dark room and shot her five times. What kind of monster does that? What kind of evil?"

After the shootings, Merhige told the rest of the family that he had been “waiting 20 years to do this.”

The Palm Beach Post reports that Merhige had a few long standing grudges against members of the family, and a history of mental illness. “Court records indicate he had a troubled relationship with his sister Carla Merhige, who was among those killed Thursday. In 1998 Carla filed a domestic violence complaint against her brother in civil court, and in 2006 he reciprocated with one against her.”

Sitton said that the dinner went well, and he saw no warning signs that Merhige was angry.

"(Merhige) sat a couple of chairs down away from me. I joked around with him. I didn't see any red flags or any irrational behavior,” said Sitton.

Merhige fled the scene of the crime immediately after shooting Makayla. Officials have not located him yet, and he is still considered armed and dangerous. Police are searching for Merhige in Florida, Michigan and Haiti, where he has ties. The Jupiter Police Department reports that he was driving a 2007 blue Toyota Camry with the license plate W42-7JT.

The Palm Beach Post instructs that anyone with information about Merhige’s whereabouts is to call the Jupiter Police Department at (561) 746-6201.

Photo credits: Jim Sitton, The Jupiter Police Department