Student, 22, sole survivor of family massacre as crazed dad kills his wife and 5 other kids in shocking murder-suicide

A 22-year-old student is the only surviving member of his family after his serial-offender father gunned down his mother, siblings and step-siblings in an “act of evil” across a small Iowa town.

Johnathan McFarland was for some reason spared Monday afternoon as his father, Ryan Willis McFarland, wiped out six other family members before killing himself after being heard ranting about death and money.

The father killed his wife, Lesa, their daughter Ryle, 20, and sons Mark, 16, and Ryan Jr., 13, at the family’s home in Muscatine — with the bodies of his wife’s children from an earlier marriage later found at separate locations.

Johnathan McFarland, 22, is the lone surviving member of his family after his father, Ryan, turned a gun on his siblings and mother in a horrifying massacre in Iowa. WQAD News 8 / YouTube

Austin Harris, 29, was killed at his home, while the killer’s other stepson, Dakota Whitlow, 32, was killed while working at his late father’s metal shop, Willits Metalworks.

Sole survivor Johnathan addressed his overwhelming loss at a vigil service for the family Tuesday — where he even spared a thought for his father.

“It’s hard to even think that this is even real. I’m still in denial,” the student said..

“I just wanted to say that I will forever love and miss my mom Lesa, my sister Riley, my 4 brothers, Dakota, Austin, Mark and Ryan,” he said.

Family killer Ryan McFarland had a criminal history dating back more than three decades including armed robbery, theft and fraud charges. Muscatine county

“No matter what is being told to me, I will always love and miss my dad, Ryan.”

Cops said they believed the killings — which they called an “act of evil” — stemmed from a domestic dispute. The deranged killer was heard shouting about money outside his home just 10 minutes before the shootings, his neighbor Melissa Weggen told the Quad-City Times.

“I heard him walk by my house, saying, ‘Don’t worry about money. Everything goes away when you die,” the neighbor chillingly recalled overhearing.

Ryan McFarland had a checkered past, including an armed robbery and the death of a baby under his care.

In the early 2000s, McFarland and Lesa opened Little People Daycare & Preschool, which they operated out of their home until their license was revoked after an eight-month-old baby was found unresponsive in a crib, RadioIowa reported.

The child died in the hospital, and McFarland, who had a lengthy criminal history, was charged in 2011 with felony child endangerment resulting in death and neglect.

As part of a plea deal, the neglect charge was dropped and the child endangerment felony was reduced to a misdemeanor, which enabled McFarland to avoid a maximum 50-year jail term.

McFarland was convicted of armed robbery in Illinois in 1994 and sentenced to seven years in prison, according to WQAD.

Three years later, he pleaded guilty to a theft charge and hit with an eight-year sentence.

Then in 2019, the once-aspiring teacher was busted and convicted of fraud after he was found to have messed with the odometers of cars before selling them.