Mississippi shooting: Gunman kills father and daughter, 9, as neighbours describe 'horror movie' scene

Wife, six-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter are still in hospital

Two of the family were killed in the attack (stock image) (Rex )

A man in the US has allegedly attacked a family, killing the father and nine-year-old daughter in a horrendous assault that neighbours described as “like a horror movie”.

Jimmy Lyons, 32, is believed to have been renting a room in the Mississippi home of Jermaine, 31, and Victoria Sims, 29, and their three children, whose names have not been released, when he attacked the family late on Thursday evening.

Details surrounding the incident remain scare. Brookhaven police chief Bobby Bell told The Clarion Ledger that Lyons and Mr Sims had got into an altercation in the house but it remained unclear what started the fight.

Officers, who arrived at a neighbour’s house on the night of the incident after receiving a call at approximately 12.20am, found Lyons – uninjured – inside the Sims’ home.

Yesterday they confirmed that Mr Sims and his nine-year-old daughter had died in hospital from gunshot wounds from a .45 calibre weapon.

The couple’s six-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter remain at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, while Mrs Sims is being treated at Southwest Mississippi Medical Center. All are being treated for gunshot wounds.

Neighbour Donna Davis, who lives opposite the family’s wood-clad home in a trailer, was woken just after midnight by pounding on her front door.

Opening it, she saw Mrs Sims and her two surviving children outside covered in blood, having run across a usually busy road to escape from their home. So covered in blood were the trio that Ms Davis initially assumed they had been hit by a car.

“The little boy, he was half under the porch like he was trying to hide from someone. He was screaming for help,” she told an Associated Press reporter.

“It was like out of a horror movie,” she added. “I still see that little girl’s face in my mind.”

Her husband, John, added that the boy appeared to have cuts all over his face as if someone had attacked him with a knife, he claimed.

According to Mrs Davis’s mother-in-law Linda, who lives next door and also came over when the incident occurred, said the daughter kept clinging to her and crying that she wanted her “mama”.

Local police spokesperson Captain Clint Earls said that Lyons, currently held in a county jail, faces two counts of murder and three of aggravated assault.

“The only thing we are waiting on is getting some of the victims in well-enough health to where they can shed some light on what caused the incident to erupt,” Cap Earls added.