On the morning of September 25, 1982, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was rocked by a multi-site mass shooting that left thirteen people dead. Four-year-old Boende Banks was among those killed when his father, 40-year-old former prison guard George Emil Banks, returned from a night of drinking, armed himself with an AR-15 rifle, and opened fire at the family home on Schoolhouse Lane. Also murdered there were Boende’s mother Susan Yuhas, his 20-month-old sister Mauritania, his 6-year-old half-sister Montanzima, his 1-year-old half-brother Foraroude, two of George Banks’ girlfriends, Regina Clemens and Dorothy Lyons, and Dorothy’s 11-year-old daughter Nancy.

Banks then drove to the Heather Highlands mobile home park in Jenkins Township and continued the attack, killing former girlfriend Sharon Mazzillo, her 5-year-old son Kissmayu, Sharon’s mother Alice, and her 7-year-old nephew Scott. A bystander, 24-year-old Raymond F. Hall Jr., was also shot and killed, and another man was wounded. A four-hour manhunt ended in a standoff and Banks’s eventual surrender. He later said he had killed his children to spare them from the racism he had experienced.

Boende was one of the youngest victims in a case that drew statewide attention. Does anyone have memories of the Wilkes-Barre community in 1982 or information about the victims and their families that could add context to what happened?