The gunman who killed three people and wounded six others as he fired randomly while roaming his northwestern New Mexico neighborhood was a local high school student and his victims include a 97-year-old woman and her daughter, police said Tuesday.
Investigators were still trying to determine a motive for the attack by Beau Wilson, 18, in the Farmington neighborhood where he lived. They say he opened fire Monday, killing Gwendolyn Schofield, her 73-year-old daughter, Melody Ivie, and 79-year-old Shirley Voita.
Voita had worked as a nurse and was a devoted parishioner at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, said former state Rep. James Strickler, who was her friend.
“She was just a dynamite lady. She was well-loved and I’m still shocked over it,” said Strickler, who heard gunfire ring out on Monday before learning the circumstances of Voita`s death.
Witnesses and police say Wilson walked through the neighborhood a short drive from downtown Farmington spraying bullets until police arrived within minutes and fatally shot him. Two police officers were among the wounded.
“The amount of violence and brutality that these people faced is unconscionable to me,” Deputy Police Chief Kyle Dowdy said.
Deputy Police Chief Baric Crum said Wilson was indiscriminately shooting at vehicles, but that some rounds also hit homes.
Dowdy said investigators do not believe Wilson knew anyone he shot.
“We’ve discovered nothing that leads us to believe that the suspect knew" the victims, he said. “We’re pretty confident in that this was completely random.”
Bryan Brown and Brandi Dominguez were home Monday morning with their five children when the shooting began. Their doorbell camera captured yelling and the repeated pops of gunfire. Brown said it was loud and sounded as if it were coming from two different directions.
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