JACKSONVILLE — A 5-year-old girl pounded on a neighbor’s door for help when a family member shot and killed three women at her house, Florida authorities said.
Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said investigators are still piecing together the events leading up to the shooting. The 34-year-old suspect is “clinically deceased” but remains on life support pending organ donations, Leeper said in a July 25 news conference.
McClatchy News is not identifying the suspect to protect the identity of the 5-year-old child. Investigators disclosed the victims and the suspect were family members but are withholding their exact relationships and identities as they work to notify next of kin.
Deputies got a 911 call the evening of July 24 from the neighbor across the street from the Hilliard home where the shooting took place, according to a news release.
When first responders arrived, no one answered the door, but deputies found it unlocked and stumbled upon a bloody scene, Leeper said.
Deputies found one woman dead in between the living room and dining room, another dead in the hallway bathroom and a third dead in a bedroom, according to the sheriff.
The suspect was lying unconscious in the living room, still with a pulse, Leeper said. Fire rescue airlifted him to a Jacksonville hospital.
During the shooting, a 5-year-old girl managed to escape through the front door and run across the street to a neighbor, who called 911, according to the sheriff.
The girl told investigators she was in the back of the house when she heard a gunshot, and she walked down the hall to see the first victim dead in the living room, deputies said.
Another woman grabbed her and put her in the bathroom, then that woman was shot and killed, splattering blood on the child, who was otherwise uninjured, the sheriff said.
The accused shooter then went to the bedroom and killed the third woman before he was found in a puddle of blood in the living room, according to investigators.
“This was some type of domestic incident,” Leeper said. “We have a theory of what happened but we want to investigate a little bit further to determine exactly the cause.”
Investigators found several other fully-stocked magazines in the home, according to the sheriff. Leeper said there were no previous domestic calls to that home.
“As a grandfather of two young children, my heart aches for this child,” he said. “This kind of violence against family members, especially in the presence of a child, is beyond comprehension.”
Hilliard, in Nassau County, is part of the Jacksonville metropolitan area.
By OLIVIA LLOYD/McClatchy News
Olivia Lloyd is a National Real-Time Reporter for McClatchy covering the Southeast. She is based in South Florida and graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Previously, she has worked for Hearst DevHub and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
