Just after midnight Nov. 2, at a party at a three-story mansion in a wealthy Akron suburb late last year rented on Airbnb, a torrent of gunfire ripped through a dense crowd of teenagers, most of whom weren’t yet 18. 

Thirteen people at the party called 911 as an estimated 250 to 300 attendees fled, police Chief Vito Sinopoli said in an interview. One 911 call, obtained by the Associated Press, said there was “blood everywhere.”

Killed in the mayhem was Elijah Wells, 18. He was shot eight times. His obituary describes him as a young athlete, an artist and a dedicated family member. Nine others, mostly juveniles, were wounded at the party. 

Officials charged two males with murder, and a third for contributing to it. The suspects, aged 16 to 19, await trial. While the charges target those said to be directly responsible, they don’t capture the two entities positioned to profit from the rental that played host to the crime scene. 

That includes Airbnb, the online platform that marketed the short-term rental, and Shauna Gardner, the Las Vegas-based owner of the home. 

The $1.2 million, 5-bedroom house (plus a movie theater) is no longer listed on the platform, though it’s available for lease on Zillow for $8,000 per month. Gardner received the property for free in April 2022 from her husband, Michael Jones, property records show. Jones had purchased the property a month prior and gifted it to his wife before appearing for a six-year prison sentence for engaging in a mail and wire fraud conspiracy. 

Township rules don’t allow commercial activity including short-term rentals in residential zones. But the platform was listed on Airbnb regardless. 

Sinopoli declined in an interview to identify who rented the property for the night of the party. Reached by phone, Gardner declined comment. Alicia Wells, Elijah’s mother, could not be reached through her attorney. 

At least 14 people reported dead in shootings at short-term rentals in Ohio 

Airbnb launched in San Francisco in 2008, mainstreaming the concept of one stranger lending a house to another, for a fee. It has smaller competitors in the short-term rental business like Vrbo or Booking.com, but it remains the dominant player. 

Since Airbnb rentals emerged in Ohio during the mid-2010s, some customers have flouted the platform’s rules and used the rentals to host raucous parties that become spectacles in local news or social media. The damage is usually limited to irritated neighbors and rowdy behavior. (A recent police blotter alleges someone threw a beer bottle at a Parma police officer who broke up an Airbnb party last summer.)

However, short-term rentals have played host to at least 26 parties in Ohio that ended in shootings since 2017, according to a review of news reports, police records and interviews with property owners. 

All but a handful occurred at Airbnbs, according to police accounts of the shootings. At least 14 people have been killed and 47 injured. The victims are often teenagers and usually males. In Cleveland, one boy who died at a party at a short-term rental in September 2025 was reportedly just 16. 

In the case of the minors, the parties would likely be unattainable in the first place, but for the renters’ ability to borrow a furnished house with no paternalistic rules against drugs or alcohol. (Airbnb’s policies allow rentals to those 18 and older, though some hosts have stricter rules.)

In fact, the Airbnb party where Wells died wasn’t even the first such incident in the small suburb of Bath Township. Sinopoli said in 2017, he recalls responding to a crowded Airbnb party where someone was shot in the leg just outside the house. 

Similar stories abound. In April 2023, a 17-year-old boy was shot in the foot at an after-prom party in Columbus at a short-term rental, according to a police report and media. And a 27-year-old former Kent State football player was shot and killed at what police described to media as an Airbnb party in Southeast Ohio in July 2020. 

Meanwhile, in at least four drug trafficking cases, prosecutors in court records have noted the presence of Airbnbs or other short-term rentals within the supply line. Suspects have used the houses, tucked into residential neighborhoods, to buy, sell, and store illicit drugs, police say. 

Two party weekends, two deadly shootings

Recent shootings at often booze-soaked holiday gatherings have highlighted the violence at Airbnbs and other short-term rentals that become party grounds.

On July 4 weekend in Columbus, city police arrived at 1 a.m. to break up a party of a mix of teenagers and adults in east Columbus. They had received 20 disturbance calls about it, police said at a press conference. The officers ordered inhabitants to shut the music down and stay inside, but issued no citations. 

Police returned around 2:40 a.m. after Cameron Moore, 17, was shot and killed at the party. Five others were injured. 10TV, a local news outlet, obtained footage of a jam-packed party and, later, partygoers fleeing from gunfire. Columbus Deputy Police Chief Nicholas Konves said officers who show up at parties in the middle of the night don’t always have contact information to reach the homeowners, if they’re even awake. 

“We don’t exactly have data readily available in the middle of the night of who owns a short-term rental. A lot of times it’s a company,” he said “We understand it’s a problem. What happened this weekend is nonsense, and it should not have happened.”

Property records list the Equity Trust Company as the owner, with three individuals listed as beneficiaries. The primary trustee, Mehran Moghaddas, died, according to Anthony Celebrezze, a Columbus official who oversees short-term rental regulation for the city. The two surviving trustees are seeking to renew their rental license at the property. They didn’t respond to inquiries. 

Emmanuel Remy, a city councilmember from Columbus, is pushing to strengthen the city’s short-term rental laws by requiring notification to neighbors when units are converted to short-term rentals, and by giving police new powers to file trespassing charges at parties at short-term rentals, even without the homeowners present. 

In an interview, he said the violent events are occurring in an extraordinarily small share of the roughly 2,000 licensed units in the city. And he believes the platforms like Airbnb are doing their best to prevent violent events, but it’s an unavoidable risk. 

“I think it’s hard to stop, in any business, crime in general,” he said. “You could take it as far as saying that’s the cost of doing business. It’s just, that’s human nature, unfortunately. We’re just trying to put the real guardrails up.”

A similarly grisly scene played out over Halloween weekend in Mansfield, about an hour northeast of Columbus, in 2023. There, about 50 teenagers packed into a modest home for a party. 

By the time police showed up in the early morning, a 17- and 18-year old had died. Four others were shot. The shooter, 23 as of his sentencing, was given a 67-year sentence, which he’s now appealing. 

Kristen Washington, the owner of the home that hosted the shooting, listed it on Airbnb, according to police statements and property records. Court records list her and her husband as witnesses for the prosecution of Cyrus Ellerbe, the convicted shooter. She didn’t return a message on Facebook. 

What the platforms say 

Airbnb spokesperson Javier Hernandez sought further details on some of the incidents mentioned in this article, but didn’t respond to specific incidents.

“Attempts to correlate gun violence issues in Ohio to short-term rentals or Airbnb are not supported by the facts,” he said.

“There were over 10,000 firearm-related fatalities in Ohio between 2018-2023, according to the CDC, and the overwhelming majority of these had no connection to Airbnb or a short-term rental. At Airbnb, we ban disruptive parties and we invest extensively in measures to reduce the risk of potential issues. In the very rare case of gun violence during a stay, we act swiftly in response, including assisting law enforcement and supporting hosts and neighbors.”

Hernandez declined to provide company data on violent events in its rental units.

In securities filings, Airbnb has warned its investors that it can’t control or predict the actions of its invitees, whose actions may compromise the safety of others. The company says it conducts background checks for “certain” users in the U.S. and India, and screens against sanction watch lists. 

“We do not verify all listings for safety or compliance, relying instead on user-reported issues, which may be incomplete or inaccurate,” the company states. 

“We have not in the past and may not in the future undertake to independently verify the safety, suitability, location, quality, compliance with Airbnb policies or standards, and legal compliance, such as fire code compliance or the presence of carbon monoxide detectors, hidden cameras or pool safety, of all our hosts’ listings or experiences.”

But Airbnb as a company has also emphasized its global ban on disruptive parties, its rollout of “anti-party technology” on New Years Eve, and criminal background checks for guests and hosts in the U.S.

Vrbo didn’t respond to an interview request or inquiries about a party at what police described as a Vrbo unit near the campus of Ohio State University. There, officers who showed up on an early December morning in 2022 found one man dead. Two others were shot in the chest and hand, respectively. 

Signal Ohio tried to reach out to short-term rental owners whose homes were used in deadly parties. In almost all cases, the owners declined comment or couldn’t be reached. 

However, Bryan Moore, a property manager at Housepitality in Columbus, said in an interview he has had to deal with two drive-by shootings at his properties. He said there was “probably” drug activity involved. 

But he emphasized that he and his company take active steps to prevent parties in the rentals far beyond what Airbnb requires. That means scrutinizing what weekends are being requested, their length of stay, the age and hometown of the person seeking rental, and other factors, plus using doorbell cameras and noise monitors to keep an eye on things. 

And spotting those red flags usually means turning down applications and leaving money on the table. 

“We do additional vetting beyond what is required,” he said. “We want this problem solved. We really don’t want this to happen.”