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LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) —
The man who killed two people and wounded nine others at a movie theater was so mentally ill and violent that years ago, his wife hid his guns and his family had him hospitalized against his will before obtaining a court order to keep him away.
John Russell Houser, 59, stood up about 20 minutes into the "Trainwreck" movie and fired first at two people sitting in front of him, then aimed his handgun at others. Police said Friday they found 13 shell casings.
"They heard a couple of pops and didn't know what it was," said Randall Mann, whose 21-year-old daughter, Emily, was sitting in the same row as the shooter Thursday night.
She told her father that she did not hear the shooter say anything before opening fire. "And then they saw the muzzle flashes, and that's when they knew what was going on. She hit the floor immediately."
Mann said his daughter and her friend escaped, uninjured but traumatized.
Police said Houser had one additional magazine of bullets as he tried to escape. Then, when he spotted police officers outside, he turned around and pushed back through the fleeing crowd. The officers tailed him into the theater and heard a single shot before finding him dead inside.
LAREDO, Tex. –
From the moment he landed, wearing a white “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, Donald J. Trump’s visit to the border of Mexico and the United States seemed to know only one speed: full throttle.
BROKEN ARROW, Okla. (AP) —
Police responding to a silent 911 call found five people stabbed to death at a well-kept suburban Tulsa home, then detained two teenage male relatives of the victims after a police dog tracked them down in nearby woods.
Investigators, some wearing white booties to protect their shoes, stepped gingerly around a pool of blood near the front of the home Thursday morning. Other officers erected black tarps and blue tarps to shield the home from reporters and neighbors while they gathered clues. The bodies remained at the home into late-morning as police waited on a medical examiner.
"I've been here 19 years and I don't know if we've had more than three homicides in a year. I don't think we've had a single incident of this magnitude," said Broken Arrow Police Cpl. Leon Calhoun, the department spokesman.
Daylight revealed a black tarp near the home's front stoop, weighed down by a brick and flower pot. As officers worked behind their temporary tarp wall, a gust of wind blew down a segment, momentarily uncovering a bloody white sheet a few feet from the front door.
According to Calhoun, officers responding to the 911 call could not enter the house through the front door but heard moaning and found another way inside. They dragged a 13-year-old girl who survived the attack onto the front lawn, then found two other victims and, unsure if they were alive or dead but fearing a killer remained on the premises, took them outside, where the bodies remained at midday Thursday.