A Conyers kindergarten teacher shot several times Tuesday morning outside a Rockdale County daycare facility had just filed for divorce from her husband, who has confessed to shooting his estranged wife and 10-year-old stepdaughter, an official said.
Terrence Sherod Roberson, 36, surrendered to Newton County Sheriff's deputies roughly three hours after the 6:30 a.m. shooting, telling them his life was "falling apart," said Rockdale sheriff's spokeswoman Sgt. Jodi Shupe.
Kimaya Motley Roberson and her 10-year-old daughter, Corinne Williams, remain hospitalized at Atlanta-area hospitals, although the mother's condition has stabilized.
"She's doing better," Shupe said, though it's too early to know the severity of their injuries. Both were shot several times.
Corinne Williams is in critical condition, her mother in serious condition.
Family members told Channel 2 Action News that the mother was shot in the face and neck and her daughter was shot in the head.
Roberson told investigators he was waiting for his wife and stepdaughter outside the Little Mountain Christian Academy, located on Ga. 155 near the Henry County line. Kimaya Roberson dropped off her daughter at the academy to catch the school bus before heading to her job teaching kindergarten at C.J. Hicks Elementary School, as she did every day, Shupe said.
According to witnesses, Roberson started shooting as soon as his wife and stepdaughter got out of their car. It's unclear why he targeted the little girl, Shupe said.
"We consider our students and staff to be a close community who share heartache and hurting during difficult times," Samuel King, superintendent of Rockdale County Public Schools, said in a statement. "We also come together to support each other and family through our counseling services. ... We ask that you continue to keep our teacher and student in your prayers."
Timothy Lett, who said he is an acquaintance and occasional co-worker of the shooting suspect, told the AJC his boss got a call Tuesday morning from Roberson’s mother, telling him that her son had stolen a car and was armed.
Lett said he and his boss, who operates a landscaping company, sped to the daycare hoping to arrive before the alleged gunman.
“We just came here to try to warn the wife or the [little girl],” he said.
Lett called Roberson "a nice guy. I don’t know what went through him."
The Newton County Sheriff said Roberson has been arrested three times, the latest, in January, for violating probation on a January 2010 charge of simple battery as defined in the family violence act. He was also arrested in 2008 and held on a bad check charge for Montgomery County authorities.
Roberson, charged with two counts of aggravated assault, is set to make his first court appearance sometime Wednesday.
--Staff photographer John Spink and reporters Joel Provano, Mike Morris and Angel K. Brooks contributed to this article.
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