The Bartow County sheriff Wednesday identified the gunman who authorities said went on a shooting and carjacking spree Tuesday afternoon, killing one person and injuring three others.
The bizarre string of crimes ended when alleged gunman Austin Denzel Tyler, 20, crashed a stolen car and shot himself in the head, Sheriff Clark Millsap said.
“This is something we don’t ever want to see,” Millsap told reporters at one of the crime scenes. “You never expect things like this to show up in Bartow County, Georgia.”
Investigators believe the chain of events began when Tyler arrived at a home on Brent Circle and began shooting shortly after 3:30 p.m, Millsap said.
“He shot and killed one individual, (then) shot two individuals that have been life-flighted,” Millsap said. The dead victim was identified Wednesday as 64-year-old Royce Randal Hobgood.
From there, the suspect drove his truck less than 4 miles and into another home, where he again fired shots, striking a man inside the house, Millsap said. Then, the man drove to River Oaks Drive, where he carjacked two people, according to investigators.
“We saw the man and the child with their arms up because he carjacked their car at gunpoint,” a witness, Andy Abernathy, told Channel 2 Action News.
Neither the man nor child were injured in the carjacking, according to police.
“He shot the car first, then he left the scene in the carjacked vehicle,” Millsap said.
In the stolen vehicle, the suspect led deputies on a chase before crashing into a lawn care trailer full of equipment, which exploded, the sheriff said. The man then crashed the car near a McDonald’s on Douthit Ferry Road, where he was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Investigators have not identified a motive, but believe the crimes may have been drug-related, Millsap said.
None of the wounded victims’ names was released, but police believe all of those shot knew the gunman, Millsap said.
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