When a woman in Enoch, Utah, was woken up by loud popping sounds in the middle of the night, she assumed they were fireworks.

He was, after all, January fourth, then, despite it being past the time it was legal to still be using fireworks, he wasn't unusual for people to skirt the rules.

Shrugging it off as an annoyance.

The woman went back to sleep, not knowing the horror that was happening in another house in that same neighborhood.

This is monsters.

Michael Hate was born on January seventh, nineteen eighty and Seattle, Washing where his father, Robin Hayde, had been attending the University of Washington Dental School when Michael was only an infant.

His father graduated from dental school and the family moved back to Robin and his wife, Brenda's hometown of Cedar City, Utah, where Robin set up a dental practice that he would go on to operate for thirty seven years.

Robin was actively involved in many activities with his children, one of them being a leader for the Boy Scout troope Michael was involved in all the way up to Eagle Scout.

Growing up, Michael played sports and was involved in outdoor activities.

After high school, he spent a summer working at a processing plant in Alaska before going on a mission to Brazil representing his Latter Day Saints' Church.

Eventually, he enrolled in business courses at Southern Utah University, where he met a young woman named Tasha Earl.

Tasha Earl was born on January nineteenth, nineteen eighty two, in Omaha, de brass Ziska.

Her family eventually moved over to Nevada, where Tasha graduated from high school.

She enrolled at Southern Utah University, eventually graduating with a bachelor's degree in child development studies.

Before that happened, though, she and Michael got married at the Saint George Temple on May sixteenth, two thousand and three.

After they both graduated from university, Michael became an insurance salesman for All State and Tasha stayed home to take care of her growing family.

Between two thousand and five and twenty eighteen, the Hates had five children.

Their daughter, Macy, was born in two thousand and five, and then another daughter, bry Lee, was born in twenty ten.

They had twins, a boy named Anna and a daughter named Sienna in twenty fifteen, and then one more son, Gavin, in twenty eighteen.

From all outside appearances, they seem like a very happy and healthy family, but we all know that outside appearances are oftentimes a facade.

Even early on, Michael showed signs of being overly controlling.

It said that he was quite frugal, making Tasha wash out plastic bags so they could be reused, and even cutting baby wipes in half.

I get wanting to save money, especially when you only have one income, but the fact that he would expect it to be done or else Tasha got in trouble was really a sign of more abusive control.

Police later interviewed friends of Tasha's who said she felt she couldn't live up to someone who was redacted from the report.

It was probably a family member, but could have been a coworker or even someone he had been in a relationship with the past.

That's only speculation, as the identity of the person is unknown.

Her friends said that there were serious boundary issues with her and that unnamed person.

On top of that, her friend told authorities that they would regularly go to the hate house to help her clean to ensure Michael didn't yell at her when he got home.

While they were there, They said Tasha didn't like talking about her marital problems because she was afraid Michael might have been recording them.

We know now that he was recording her at times without her knowledge, using his cell phone while they were together.

I'm a little curious why you're so wanting me so aggressiveated move out of hair too, you know, and not let the system played out, and why you're feeling like you have to get some motion to remove me from him.

Especially older to have mentioned that when you're here it is more tense.

I kind of be a good husband for you, and I'm sorry I have fallen short in ways.

There are points in the recording that it's reported that she describes a time when Michael wouldn't let her drive separately to a family member's house on Thanksgiving, which she wanted to do because she didn't feel safe with him.

She tells him that those are deal breakers.

The seventy two minute recording was reviewed and it was determined that Michael was not threatening anywhere in it.

But that makes sense since he's the one making the video.

It would be one thing if he was being secretly recorded.

But since he knows he's being recorded, because he's the one recording violating his wife's privacy, he knows not to do or say anything threatening.

It's common behavior for a manipulative person to do exactly this so they look better if the footage is ever seen by someone.

It was noted that despite Michael not being threatening in the recording, his computer search history showed that he had already done Internet searches for things like would a neighbor hear a gunshot in a garage?

And if you hear a single gun shot in your neighborhood at night, would you immediately recognize it?

As such, Michael's abuse wasn't limited to Tasha.

In twenty twenty, their oldest daughter, Macy, had filed a police report, aiming that her father was becoming assaultive, that he had choked her, and that she felt terrified that he was going to hurt her.

The police interviewed Michael and he said he had never violently grabbed his daughter, and added quote, but if he had done these things, it was not meant to be an assault.

It's either an assault or it's not, Michael.

You can't physically attack someone and have it be something else.

Macy had also texted a friend that read quote, yeah, so my dad asked what he's done?

So I reminded him about all the insults and names he's called me, and he played dumb.

How can he not remember calling his daughter a failure and a disappointment on her eighth birthday?

I hate him.

At the time of the police report, the officer who took the report declined pressing charges and basically told him to calm down.

There are reports that Tasha agreed with that decision, saying she didn't want Michael arrested and she hoped the officer talking to him would be a wake up call.

It was it.

Macy contacted the Department of Child and Family Services in January of twenty twenty one and reported again that her father was being abusive.

She said that her father had gotten angry while they were driving and swerved the car so hard that she and her siblings had red marks on their chests from the seat belt.

She said that Michael had slammed her head into the hard part of the couch and would yell and berate all of the children.

DCFS did not reopen the case because they claimed Macy did not disclose any harm or threat of harm, which is weird because she absolutely did.

But anyway, Macy filed yet another report with DCFS in December of twenty twenty two, and the report was marked as unaccepted because Macy was just repeating the same things she had before.

Still, an agent had gone to the home on December nineteenth and talked to Tasha, who described Michael as having been harsh with the children, but she didn't want to to interview him until after he was served with divorce papers.

The agent told Tasha to call the police if Michael became violent in the future, but she would never have that chance.

Prior to that visit, everything had boiled over one day when their daughter Briley, was messing around while they were having a prayer session in the living room, and Michael exploded and yelled that they had the worst, most disrespectful kids ever, that it was all Tasha's fault and it was because she was fat and ugly.

Tasha would later tell a friend that she realized at that moment that none of the children reacted to Michael's outburst.

They had become so used to their father's abuse that this incident didn't even phase them.

She said she knew then that she had to file for divorce.

When the children learned that their parents were getting divorced, people said they were happy.

Normally children are pretty disappointed to learn that their parents planned to divorce, even when their parents fought a lot.

Not the Hate children, they were thrilled at the prospect of being away from their father, as he caused them so much stress.

Both Masie and Briley told friends that they were extremely happy that their mother was divorcing their father.

There were some immediate problems as Michael refused to move out of the house.

Even his own lawyer had recommended he moved out of the house at the time, but he wouldn't.

He ended up sleeping on the floor in a spare bedroom.

He started withdrawing money from their banks, and he removed all of the firearms from the house.

At some point, Tasha's mother, Gail Earl, was staying at the Hate home to help facilitate the divorce.

On top of the impending divorce, at the end of twenty twenty two, it seemed that Michael had gotten fired from his job at All State.

A client called and asked for him, and he was told he no longer worked for the company.

When the client finally got in touch with Michael, he was told that the agent had put in his notice because he was going to become an independent agent.

He said.

All State then fired him, citing improprieties in his books, but Michael claimed that was only so they didn't have to pay him his year end bonus.

Another person told police that Michael's claim was a very unlikely scenario in the insurance world and that the story raised red flags.

Also, according to Tasha, he did receive that bonus check.

She had complained to a friend that Michael had only allowed her to spend one hundred dollars on each child for Christmas and did not contribute anything more himself.

She said she was angry because they had just received a sizable check from all State.

It's also strange because he continued having an office there after this point.

On December thirtieth, Michael did an Internet search for terms that included how loud is a nine millimeter, how loud is a forty millimeter?

What does a gunshot sound like?

How loud out as a gun shot in a house?

Would a neighbor hear a gun shot in the garage, and can you hear a gun shot from inside a neighbor's house.

He also read a page on Cora where someone asked, quote, if you heard a single gunshot in your neighborhood at night, would you immediately recognize it as such?

Would you either way be alerted enough to call the police, or would you chalk it up to just being another sound in the night.

Unfortunately, the family was unaware that Michael had already decided that he was going to kill them.

When they attended church on New Year's Day, Tasha and the kids wouldn't sit with Michael.

That likely really sealed their fate, because Michael was obsessed with what other people thought of him.

He couldn't stand the idea that people thought they were anything but the perfect family.

Having the entire church see them sit separately, it would have been a hard blow to Michael's ego.

At about eleven am on January four, twenty twenty three, police were called for a welfare check when Tasha missed an appointment and was not answering calls.

Officers went to the house and reported that nobody answered the door and it appeared that nobody was home, so they left another welfare request came in at one fifty pm by someone concerned with Michael's behavior over the previous few weeks.

The officers returned and reported the house was secure and they couldn't see anything alarming through the windows.

They called the schools to see if any of the kids were absent, and they were told that Briley was absent, but they weren't able to make contact with anyone at the other schools.

Around three pm, Michael was reported missing after not showing up for work and missing several meetings.

They also said he left some personal documents on his desk that his coworkers thought were unusual.

Finally, a family member entered the house at three point fifty pm and saw a body on a bed with blood, so they backed out of the house and called the police.

At just after four pm, the police finally arrived and confirmed they were dead bodies in the house.

All of the victims had died from gunshot wounds.

In the master bedroom there were the bodies of seventy eight year old Gail Earl, forty year old Tasha Hate, and four year old Gavin Hate.

The rest of the victims were in their own rooms.

Seventeen year old Macy, twelve year old Briley, and seven year old twins amon in Sienna.

Michael was found in the spare room in the basement with a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Near Michael's body was a note that read quote, I have worked my whole life for the ideal of an eternal family.

I have been an honorable good man who has tried to do my best to provide for my family.

I've seen the texts and emails, with all the backbiting and gossip about me and my family.

I cannot believe that God has allowed the person who should be closest to me in the world default find gossip and disparage me at every turn.

I have never seen someone who is so intent at finding faults and others.

I have tried helping, but it generally backfires and I seem to always get blamed.

I would rather rot in hell than to put up with another day of this manipulation and control over me.

I've been complained about every step of the way, that I worked too much, put my church calling before my wife, and on and on and on.

She has been so awful to me and my family for years, and I have generally been patient trying to work through her issues with my family, our kids, neighbors, ward members, and others who don't make her the center of attention.

This is nonsense and I can't handle it for one more day.

We will not be a burden on society.

I kept asking for help and you wouldn't listen.

Now let's break this note down a little bit.

Of course, Michael places all the blame for his disgusting actions on Tasha.

His note has a tone that he had never done anything wrong and his family just hated him for no reason.

He mentions Tasha had been constantly disparaging him, but it sounds like she was only disparaging him from being a controlling asshole.

He mentions that she is intent on finding faults and others, but again, she seems to only be finding a fault in him being a controlling asshole.

If he would rather rot in hell than spend another day with his family, he could have killed himself and done that, but he took the rest of the family with them, which only proved he was a selfish, controlling asshole.

To add insult to injury, after the deaths, an obituary appeared online posted by an unknown source that described Michael as a loving husband and father.

It described him as always making a point to spend time with his kids, you know, in the years before he murdered them by shooting them all in the head.

The obituary was likely posted by a family member, but it was eventually taken down.

It kind of explains why Michael became what he became.

It sounds like he came from a family who refused to accept he had any faults, and he grew into a person who couldn't accept that he had any faults.

So when his wife and children began crying out for help, begging him to accept those faults and do something about them, he just saw them as the enemy and murdered them all like a monster.

If you're the victim of domestic abuse, please reach out to someone for help.

Please talk to your local shelter, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at one eight hundred seven nine ninth safe that's one eight hundred seven nine nine seven two three three, or you can go to the hotline dot org to chat with someone online.

If you're having feelings of harming yourself or someone else, or even just need someone to talk to Please contact your local mental health facility call nine one one, or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by simply dialing nine to eight eight in the United States, they're available twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and we'll talk to you about any mental health issue you might be facing.

If you're a member of the LGBTQ plus community and suffering from discrimination, depression, or are in need of any support, please contact the LGBT National Hotline at one eight eight eight eight four three four five six four, or go to LGBT Hotline dot org.

Thanks so much for letting me tell you this story.

If you're a fan of true crime, you can subscribe to this show so you don't miss an episode.

My other show, Somewhere Sinister is no longer getting new episodes, but you can check it out if you like interesting stories from history that aren't necessarily true crime, but true crime adjacent.

It's available anywhere that you listen to podcasts.

You can also check out my personal vlog, Giles with a Jay, which is sporadically updated with stuff about my personal life, travel and music.

It's available on YouTube.

If you'd like to support the show, check out our merchandise at this ismonsters dot com.

A link is in the description.

Thanks again and be safe.