Two separate shootings within a single weekend in the United States have killed 14 people, including both attackers, who took their own lives. In each case, police say the victims were largely or entirely relatives of the gunman.

The deadlier attack took place on Friday in Erie, a city in northwestern Pennsylvania about 120 miles (190km) north of Pittsburgh. Police say a 45-year-old man killed eight people at a home shortly before 5 pm before shooting himself. Police Chief Rick Lorah said the gunman was related to seven of the victims; the eighth was a friend of one of the women. Officers arrived after reports of gunfire and found two women, aged 51 and 37, dead outside. Investigators say recordings captured muffled shots from inside the house just before two distressed women arrived and pounded on the door; the gunman came out, shot them and went back inside. Officers then used a drone and a robot to search the building. The victims included a woman eight months pregnant, her five-year-old son and her unborn baby, and a one-year-old girl, Amarianna. The other victims were aged between 19 and 44. Authorities have not released names, a motive or the precise family relationships. Lorah suggested mental health could be a factor and said investigators would speak to relatives and examine the phones of the women killed outside.

At a memorial on Sunday, Julius Windham, whose daughter Amarianna was among the dead, said the gunman, a grandfather, had never seemed distressed. "I think that was a front for him," he said. Longtime family friends described a loving family and a man who "started going downhill" in recent times. Erie's mayor, Daria Devlin, told the families that the whole community was grieving with them, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said he was praying for them. The attack recalls a 1982 massacre in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in which a man killed 13 people, including five of his own children.

Late on Saturday, around 11 pm, police in Douglas, a small city in the southern US state of Georgia, discovered a second case of family violence after an emergency call from one of the victims. The woman had fled the house seriously wounded but died on the way to hospital. Police say four people, all relatives of the gunman, were killed before he took his own life; five adults died in total. No identities or motive have been released. Police said earlier that day the gunman's wife had called them to complain that he was smoking indoors and was "killing her with the smoke".

The two incidents were unconnected, but both underline how a large share of mass shootings in the US occur within families and homes. Investigations into both are continuing.