Global Courant 2023-05-05 04:56:39
A Georgia man shot and killed two of his family members and a fast-food restaurant manager before committing suicide in rural South Georgia on Thursday, the local coroner said.
The gunman killed his 50-year-old mother and 74-year-old grandmother in two neighboring homes and killed a woman, age 41, at a McDonald’s restaurant in downtown Moultrie, Colquitt County Coroner C. Verlyn Brock told The Associated Press. He said the gunman, 26, shot himself.
All three women appeared to have been shot multiple times, according to the coroner.
“I can’t for the life of me figure out what provoked him so much,” Brock said in a phone interview.
Brock declined to release the names of the dead, saying his office was still notifying next of kin.
McDonald’s said the woman killed at the restaurant was a manager, but the company did not name her. Brock said he didn’t know if the gunman and the McDonald’s manager knew each other.
The Moultrie Police Department called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to take the lead in investigating the case, which often happens with major crimes in Georgia. As of Thursday evening, the GBI had released a statement saying only that there were “multiple fatalities” at various locations.
“We are working to obtain more information and locate some additional witnesses,” GBI Special Agent in Charge Jamy Steinberg wrote in an email. He did not immediately respond to phone and email messages asking for more information.
Jerry Goodwin lived next door to the shooter and his mother and two doors down from the grandmother. He told The Associated Press on Thursday that his wife heard gunshots before 1 a.m. Thursday, while he was sleeping. Goodwin said the young man who lives next door had come out a day earlier in the week and fired a gun while shouting something, and Moultrie police had responded.
However, it appears that the police did not immediately respond on Thursday. Goodwin said police and an ambulance arrived just before 6am, with the ambulance immediately taking one person away. He said the coroner later retrieved two more bodies.
Goodwin said he didn’t know his neighbors well, although the man had come to his home after moving in several years ago to seek advice on installing a fence.
“I had never seen him hurt anyone or tried to hurt anyone,” Goodwin said.
Moultrie police chief Sean Ladson did not immediately return emails seeking comment. A person who answered the phone at police headquarters said Ladson referred all calls to the GBI.
Moultrie resident Tanner Strickland said he knew two of the women killed.
“Both were two of the most amazing people I’ve had the pleasure of surrounding,” Strickland told WALB-TV. “They both light up every room they enter. Both really have a heart of gold.”
Sabrina Holweger, who works in an optometrist’s office next to McDonald’s, told the AP she and a colleague arrived at work before 8 a.m. to find the body of a woman shot in a doorway of the restaurant, while the police swarmed.
“It was really scary not knowing if they had shot themselves,” Holweger said.
She said police closed off a main street that runs in front of McDonald’s in the city of 15,000.
Holweger said the woman who died at the restaurant was the early morning manager and the shooter was an employee there. Holweger said it appeared the man had killed the woman when she opened the door to let him in for an early morning shift.
George Suarez, owner and operator of the McDonald’s in Moultrie, said the restaurant will remain closed until further notice.
“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved restaurant manager and our hearts go out to all the victims of this senseless act of violence,” Suarez said in a statement from McDonald’s headquarters in Chicago.
The murders in Moultrie, in rural Colquitt County about 60 miles northeast of Tallahassee, Florida, came a day later a gunman in Atlanta killed one person and wounded four others at a medical office.
Chas Cannon, the Colquitt County government clerk, said he was taking his daughter to school Thursday morning as he passed the McDonald’s closed off by police tape and patrol cars.
“A homicide is pretty rare in our neck of the woods,” Cannon said. “It’s surprising. But this day and time our jail is full, our local jail is full. Unfortunately, there are many people who break the law.”
