WALLED LAKE, Mich. – An Oakland County man who killed his wife and dog, shot his 25-year-old daughter, and then died in a shootout with police had been radicalized by an online conspiracy that claims the COVID pandemic was planned and the 2020 election was stolen, according to his youngest daughter.
Woman, dog killed in Walled Lake shooting
Oakland County detectives were called at 4:11 a.m. Sunday (Sept. 11) to a home on Glenwood Drive. They had received a 911 call from a 25-year-old woman who said she and her mother had been shot by her father, police said.
Officials later identified Igor Lanis, 53, of Walled Lake, as the suspected shooter.
Lanis was accused of shooting his 56-year-old wife four times with a handgun in her back as she tried to escape out the front door.
Police found the woman’s body while searching the home. An autopsy confirmed she had died from gunshot injuries.
The family dog, a Great Pyrenees, had been shot multiple times with a shotgun and killed, according to authorities.
Officers said they found Lanis’ 25-year-old daughter as she tried to crawl out of the home. She had been shot by her father in the back of her legs and was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition, police said.
“I think she said she couldn’t feel her legs,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said. “So, obviously, the injury is pretty substantial.”
She underwent surgery and has been upgraded to stable.
Lanis killed during shootout
When police arrived at the scene, they heard gunshots coming from Lanis’ home, they said.
Lanis walked out the front door with a Remington 870 shotgun and started firing shots at officers, according to authorities.
Police returned fire, killing Lanis, they said.
“I think there was danger to anybody,” Bouchard said. “In fact, he had his keys with him when he engaged the officer and the deputy with the gunfire, so who knows where he was headed.”
None of the officers were injured during the shootout.
An autopsy confirmed Lanis died from gunshot injuries.
Investigating motive
Deputies from Oakland County confirmed Monday that they were still trying to figure out the motive for this shooting.
Members of the Oakland County Special Investigations Unit seized Lanis’ cellphone, as well as other electronic devices that might provide clues in the case.
“This is an unbelievably horrific act,” Bouchard said. “It is so sad on so many levels, but due to the response and professionalism of our dispatch, the Walled Lake officers, and Oakland County Sheriff’s Office deputies, at least one victim was saved. We will actively pursue information to gain insight into what set this into motion.”
Youngest daughter says QAnon radicalized Lanis
Rebecca Lanis, 21, told officials that she believes her father had been radicalized by the QAnon conspiracy.
The conspiracy is based on a belief that a pedophilic cult made up of Democrats and global elites planned the COVID pandemic and stole the 2020 election from former President Donald Trump.
Rebecca Lanis believes the conspiracy sent her father over the edge the past few years.
“He started reading about the stolen election and Trump, and then he started getting deeper into it, and then when the vaccines came out and COVID, he started reading all that,” she said.
Rebecca Lanis said she was at a birthday party over the weekend when she learned her parents were dead and her older sister was in the hospital. She said she got a call from her grandmother about four hours after the shooting.
She then posted in a social media forum for people who believe their friends or family members have been affected by the QAnon conspiracy. She wrote that the internet “ruined” her father and caused him to become more and more agitated over the past two years.
She said Igor Lanis became increasingly radical after the 2020 election.
“In 2021, I could see him starting to spiral,” Rebecca Lanis said. “Then, in 2022, he was completely spiraled off the deep end. Every conversation we had he had to bring up vaccines or COVID or 5G or EMFs or something, or just anything ridiculous you could think of. If any of you have relatives like this, you need to start monitoring them. If they have guns, you should hide them or something, because these people are dangerous.”
Neighbors shocked by shooting
Officials said Igor Lanis had no previous criminal history. Neighbors were shocked to learn about the shooting.
“I’m surprised by this,” one neighbor told Local 4. “I’m shocked by it, to be honest.”
Stephen Petris, who lives in the same Walled Lake subdivision, said he heard a loud bang.
“I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, and I thought it was a car muffle backfire,” Petris said.
Neighbors said they would often see Lanis walk the Great Pyrenees around the subdivision.
“He often walked his dog,” one resident said. “He had a fluffy white dog that we would see often, and the dog was beautiful, so that’s kind of how we knew him: The guy with the fluffy white dog.”
“I said hello to him a couple days ago as I was doing some yard work,” Petris said. “I got no response back from the guy. He just had his head down walking his dog. That’s the only interaction I had with him.”
