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McKinley county man sentenced in fatal family shooting
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A McKinley County man was sentenced Tuesday to 27½ years in federal prison in the 2023 shooting death of his brother and father.
In August, Ellery Yazzie, 37, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, according to court records. Yazzie was additionally convicted of assault resulting in serious bodily injury and assault with a deadly weapon.
Yazzie’s attorney could not be immediately reached for comment.
On Dec. 22, Yazzie, "without any physical altercation or provocation," pulled a gun on his sister in the family’s Pinehill home on the Navajo Nation reservation, according to the criminal complaint. The mother and grandfather reported to investigators that Yazzie began firing at the family, killing his brother and father and shooting his sister six times in the abdomen.
Yazzie then shot himself in the head, the complaint details, but survived his injuries and was transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital.
The mother, who had taken cover during the shooting, drove her daughter partway to a Zuni hospital, where she was picked up by an ambulance and treated. The mother told investigators that Yazzie would regularly threaten to kill his family members while brandishing a gun, and that he had done so a month prior to the fatal incident.
After his sentence, Yazzie will be subject to five years of supervised release.
