Long Branch shooting: It joins an ever-growing list of mass killings

The tragic slaying of four people in Long Branch New Year’s Eve joins an ever-growing list of mass killings, both at the Shore and across the country.

Long Branch has known such numbing tragedy before.

When police arrived at a burning home on Joline Avenue on Sept. 1, 2015, it appeared an accidental fire claimed the lives of a Long Branch couple and their two children. It didn’t.

PREVIOUS: Long Branch shooting: 16-year-old in custody after killing family, friend

Thirty-five-year-old Shane Beharry shot and killed his partner, 29-year-old Amanda Morris, and the couple's two boys, 4-year-old Brian and 7-year-old Brandon, before turning the gun on himself. Scroll to the video above to see news of the recent slaying.

The body count was even higher in Toms River years earlier.

On April 9, 2002, Seaside Heights police Officer Edward Lutes, 42, used his department-issued MP5 machine gun to shoot and kill five of his neighbors in the East Dover section of Toms River. He then drove to Barnegat where he wounded his police chief before shooting himself in a nearby driveway.

It ranked as the worst mass murder in Ocean County history. It came about six weeks after another chilling rampage.

SHOOTING Authorities seek public's help in Eatontown shooting

Retired Newark police officer John W. Mabie shot and killed his granddaughter, Natalie Gingerelli, 22, and three of his next-door neighbors on Tyler Drive in Toms River. Mabie's neighborhood in Toms River's East Dover section was located about 1 1/2 miles from the scene of Lutes' rampage.

Mabie, who had been descending into mental illness for years, was 72 when sentenced to 30 years in prison in December 2003.

According to a CNN analysis, New Jersey ranked among the top states for shootings that injured or killed four or more people between Jan. 1 and Nov. 5, 2017.

New Jersey was in a group of six states that had seven or more mass shootings per 5 million residents. The other states were Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio and South Carolina. Only Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi had more.

According to Gun Violence Archive, the Long Branch mass shooting was the second deadliest since the Nov. 5 killings in Sutherland Springs, Texas, that claimed 27 lives and left 20 others injured.

The United States outpaces the world in mass shootings. One study attributes more than 30 percent of the 292 shootings in which four or more people were killed worldwide between 1966 and 2012 to the United States, according to CNN.

Ken Serrano: 732-643-4029; kserrano@gannettnj.com