A man whose adult son and 18-month-old granddaughter were shot and killed during an attack in East Glacier on Sunday that left three people dead, including the family’s assailant, has released a video statement on behalf of his family in which he offers thanks to those who have supported them since the tragedy, and, referring at times to the Lord’s Prayer, says that he has told his children not to harbor anger as they grieve.
As John Siau says of the violence committed against his son’s family and his daughter “what we have seen is actually the result of somebody who has harbored anger in his own life and allowed it to fester and allowed it to grow and develop into something very terrible and unspeakable.”
“It starts out ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,’” Siau says of the Christian Lord’s Prayer. “And further down there’s some words that I’d like you to think about, which is ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who would trespass against us.’ And certainly the Siau family has had terrible trespasses committed against us, but our goal is to forgive, and God has told us as we forgive those, he will forgive us and I’d like to close by saying, ‘For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever amen.’”
John Siau’s video statement was shared with media by the FBI, and a spokesperson for the federal agency noted that the family has requested privacy going forward.
As family members remain hospitalized and in recovery from the trauma of Sunday night, a GoFundMe campaign started a day ago by the sister of one of the victims had raised $101,879 as of Thursday morning. Bethany Siau, the family member, and sister of homicide victim David Siau, started the fundraiser and wrote in its description that it was to assist with medical bills for two of the victims. The crowdfunding website GoFundMe has said that it has verified the fundraiser.
According to a press release issued earlier this week by the Glacier County Sheriff’s Office, Sunday’s violence in East Glacier, a community along the eastern portion of Glacier National Park, began sometime before 9 p.m. when a 37-year-old man, Derick Amos Madden, drove into a group of people walking beside a roadway, before crashing his vehicle into a tree, getting out of the car with a shotgun, and fatally shooting 39-year-old David Siau. Madden also shot David Siau’s wife Christy Siau, age 40, and the couple’s 18-month-old daughter McKenzie Siau as she was held by her mother. David Siau is the son of John Siau, the man who recorded the video statement.
Using a knife, Madden then continued attacking the family after he ran out of ammunition and went after 30-year-old East Glacier resident Christina Siau, who is David’s sister. Christina Siau was wounded, but was able to fatally injure Madden as she fought him. The sheriff’s office has said that Madden, originally from Goldsby, Oklahoma, “was in a prior relationship with Christina Siau and was suffering from mental health issues.” Madden had been working in East Glacier, according to the Associated Press.
Two other “minor children” were present when the attack began but were able to run away and escape injury, the sheriff’s office said. After the attack Christy Siau, her toddler daughter McKenzie, and Christina Siau were transported to Indian Health Service in Browning where McKenzie was pronounced dead, and Christy and Christina were eventually flown to another hospital to receive further care for what the sheriff’s office described as “critical injuries.”
David, Christy, and McKenzie Siau are from Syracuse, New York. The Post-Standard, a Syracuse newspaper, reported that the family loved the outdoors, camped often, and had been camping near Glacier National Park as part of a trip out west that began on July 9. Peter DePuy, a friend and coworker of David Siau, told the newspaper that David and his family had planned to visit Mount Rushmore and then return home this weekend. On Monday, John Siau and his wife Melanie Siau flew to Montana to be with Christy and Christina and care for two children, according to an article the newspaper published Wednesday.
The paper also reported that David Siau had grown up as the oldest of 10 children and worked for his father’s audio equipment production and sales company Benchmark Media Systems. The Siau family has roots in the community of Pompey which is southeast of Syracuse, and the Pompey Community Church.
“David was a fun and happy guy, and he was very caring,” DePuy told the Post-Standard, adding that he was “a great dad” and that he and Christy had been married around 2010.
The online news website The Daily Beast has reported that Christina Siau has worked at Indian Health Services since 2019 and is a physician assistant there.
A reporter for The Daily Beast spoke with Derick Madden’s sister Michelle Madden, who said that her brother ‘suffered from mental illness and had a brain injury,’ and that investigators told her that Christina Siau had managed to get the knife away from Madden and stab him to death. Law enforcement have yet to publicly say specifically how Madden was killed during the struggle with Christina Siau.
Michelle Madden also told the news outlet that her brother had been committed to a VA hospital for psychiatric problems at least once, and that his mental health issues ‘stemmed’ from a deployment to Afghanistan as part of his decade of service in the Oklahoma National Guard. The Associated Press reported earlier this week that authorities were still trying to determine if Derick Madden had the shotgun legally.
The initial response Sunday night involved officers with the Glacier County Sheriff’s Office, Blackfeet Law Enforcement Services officers, the National Park Service rangers, a Montana Highway Patrol trooper, an FBI agent, Blackfeet EMS, Glacier Park Lodge Security and East Glacier Fire Rescue. The investigation into the attack and subsequent killings remains ongoing.
Full transcript of John Siau’s video: My name is John Siau and on behalf of my entire family, the entire Siau family, I’d like to make this statement. I’d like to thank everyone who has so graciously surrounded us and reached out and helped us through this difficult time. And as I have talked to each of my children, we have a very large family, I said to them: Grieve, be sad, but don’t harbor anger about what has happened. Because what we have seen is actually the result of somebody who has harbored anger in his own life and allowed it to fester and allowed it to grow and develop into something very terrible and unspeakable. And in light of that I’d like everybody to think about the words that are very familiar to us from the Lord’s Prayer and it starts out ’Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.’ And further down there’s some words that I’d like you to think about, which is ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.’ And certainly the Siau family has had terrible trespasses committed against us, but our goal is to forgive, and God has told us as we forgive those, he will forgive us. And I’d like to close by saying ‘For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever amen.’