Six Dead in Northern Michigan After Wounded 13-Year-Old Names Gunman

Six is the number that matters most in northern Michigan: six people dead in a single day in a rural county where a mass killing is not supposed to happen. Five of the dead were victims shot across multiple locations on Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, in Missaukee County. The sixth was the identified gunman, 39-year-old Chad Hickman, also found dead. ³⁵⁷

The scale is felt in the geography and in the survivor. A series of shootings left six dead in a county of small townships and woods, about 169 miles northwest of Detroit, and the case broke open only because a 13-year-old girl who had been shot four times was still able to call 911 and help identify the gunman. ⁵⁷³⁵⁷

The first 911 call came just before noon Friday from a home in Lake Township, Missaukee County, where deputies found the 13-year-old shot four times and three other people dead. ⁵⁷ Police described a "large-scale search around two homes and a wooded area" that followed the initial discovery, a phrase that captures how quickly one house became three scenes. ³

The girl identified the attacker as Chad Hickman, 39. ²⁵ Her grandfather told NBC News she "managed to call 911 and describe the gunman and his vehicle despite having been shot", an account of presence of mind under catastrophic injury that investigators then acted on. ² The Guardian reported she was called "a hero" for making that call. ⁸

Investigators then found a 53-year-old victim dead at a second home, and in a wooded area found a 29-year-old victim dead alongside Hickman, who was also found dead near his vehicle. ⁵ The Michigan State Police later identified the five victims overall as a 45-year-old man, a 40-year-old woman, a 16-year-old boy, a 53-year-old man, and a 29-year-old woman. ¹⁰

That age list matters because it corrects the first telling. One of the five victims was a 16-year-old boy, a detail the initial video account omitted. ¹⁰⁴ The three other people found dead with the wounded 13-year-old at the first home included that teenager, a fact that changes the first house from an adult scene to one involving two children, one killed and one gravely wounded. ⁴⁵

Detectives with the MSP Cadillac Post processed three crime scenes overnight and said they were still seeking a possible motive. ⁹¹¹ State police are investigating both the motive and any connections between Hickman and the victims. ⁹¹¹

The girl's medical condition was reported in stages, and the reporting shifted as she survived. She was initially reported in critical condition. ²⁹¹¹ Later reporting said she remained hospitalized in stable condition. ¹⁰ That is not a contradiction to resolve so much as an evolution: critical at discovery, stable later, with longer-term prognosis still not detailed in the sources.

What is not established anywhere in the reporting is as important as what is. How Hickman died has not been established in the sources. ⁵⁹¹¹ What linked him to each victim, the exact relationship and motive, and a complete timeline with exact locations have not been established. ⁹¹¹ The investigation is explicitly open on those points, with MSP seeking motive and connections rather than asserting them. ⁹¹¹

The other correction is about sourcing itself. The video suggested this account rested on a single published report that had not been independently corroborated. ^234567891011 In fact it was corroborated across AP, NBC News, CNN, The Guardian, and local outlets including FOX 2 Detroit, ClickOnDetroit, and the Cadillac News, which carried MSP's updated victim details. ^234567891011

That breadth of corroboration firms up the core: date, county, death toll, ages, three scenes, and the central act by the 13-year-old caller. ³⁵⁷¹⁰ It does not fill the central holes. Corroboration so far repeats the same limits — no confirmed account of how Hickman died in the woods near his vehicle, no confirmed link to each victim, and no confirmed motive carried by more than one newsroom independently beyond police saying they are looking. ⁵⁹¹¹