The 40-year-old man who fatally shot four people in the country's 31st mass killing this year needed mental help for nearly a decade, but his family and officials couldn't force him to get treatment, his mother said.
Andre Longmore walked through his neighborhood in the semirural suburb of Hampton, Georgia, on Saturday and shot four neighbors, all older adults. The killings set off a massive search that ended Sunday with Longmore dead in a shootout in another suburb about 15 miles (25 kilometers) north. The exchange of gunfire wounded a sheriff's deputy and two police officers, who were all expected to recover.
Longmore had a "mental breakdown" in 2014, leading to an inpatient hospital stay, his mother Lorna Dennis, told WSB-TV on Sunday.
She said her son "kept deteriorating" but refused to seek medical attention, and that officials said they couldn't force him to seek care.
"It's hard to lose your son, and it's also hard to know your son cost the life of so many people," Dennis said.
She said Longmore had served in the Army, was living with her in recent years, and that she hoped that relatives of the victims could find peace with God.
"I feel so much for the families, and that's why I just want to say I'm very, very sorry. I know words cannot really comfort them from me at this time, but I know there is a comforter, and they can refer to him at any time," Dennis said.
The Army said Longmore was a sergeant, working as an automated logistical specialist from August 2000 to May 2006 overseeing supplies and equipment. He deployed to Afghanistan, served under hostile fire and was a trained parachutist, driver and mechanic.
Hampton Mayor Ann Tarpley said the city would hold a prayer vigil Monday for the four who died in the city of 8,000 — Scott Leavitt, 67; his wife, Shirley Leavitt, 66; Steve Blizzard, 65; and Ronald Jeffers, 66.
"Today is about the victims of this tragic event," Tarpley told reporters Sunday. "It's about their families, and it's about the community."
All four lived in the same subdivision as Longmore, where about 40 houses with tidy yards flank a lake on two streets about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Atlanta. Police and witnesses said Longmore shot the four within about 10 minutes Saturday morning before stealing Blizzard's SUV and fleeing.
Residents in the Dogwood Lakes subdivision were surprised that gun violence had come to their peaceful neighborhood.
"I'm not going to say it makes me uneasy, but it does drive home that this kind of thing could happen anywhere," said Kevin Pugh, who lives next door to the house where the Leavitts lived for a few years with their adult daughter and her young children. "Up until Saturday, the most ruckus we had was the Canadian geese."
Tom Hannegan has lived in the neighborhood for 12 years and is president of its homeowners association. He and his husband, Donald Smith, said the only crime they ever remember hearing about was a rash of car break-ins about five years ago.
Hannegan said Longmore attended a couple of association meetings with his mother, but he didn't really know him. Longmore sometimes rode an electric scooter around the neighborhood or drove slowly up and down the dead-end streets.
"You could just tell he was a little out there," Hannegan said. "He would tell people he was a prophet."
The shootings brought to 31 the number of mass killings so far this year, with at least 153 people dying in them, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in a partnership with Northeastern University.
Longmore was killed in suburban Jonesboro after a Henry County sheriff's deputy saw the stolen SUV and began chasing him, calling for help.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Monday that Longmire first tried to ambush officers and shot a Henry County deputy. He stole a police vehicle and drove across the street, investigators said. Longmore then fled to the backyard of a townhouse, bleeding and naked, and ran inside. When officers entered the home, Longmore fired again, wounding two Clayton County police officers.
The sheriff's deputy was shot in the back and underwent surgery. Both Clayton officers were released after treatment for minor injuries.
Erin Leavitt, in a Facebook post, remembered her aunt and uncle, Scott and Shirley, as "fun loving and caring souls, my aunt possibly one of the sweetest and kindest souls a person could meet."
They both grew up in Massachusetts and moved years ago to Georgia, where they shared their home with their daughter Jessica and granddaughters, Erin Leavitt wrote. The couple also has two other surviving children, she wrote.
"Jessica and her young girls were also home at the time of the attack, however, my aunt was able to alert her and she and the girls survived," she Leavitt wrote. "Sadly, my aunt did not."
Jeffers was described as a devoted member of his church. Sherry Wyatt, who works at Hampton's recreation center near Jeffers' home, said Jeffers would regularly sing at the senior center that shares the building.
A few months ago she told Jeffers how beautiful his voice was.
"I'm just so glad I told him he sang like an angel," Wyatt said. "I know he is in heaven now singing."
Hannegan and Smith live two doors down from the house where Blizzard had lived since the subdivision was built in the 1990s. One of the few remaining original residents, they said, he was vice president of the homeowners association and previously served as its president.
"He was just a good guy," Hannegan said.
Blizzard was a military veteran and skilled locksmith, former coworker Randy Slape told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He lamented that Blizzard's life was cut short.
"I can just imagine that he was planning on doing something with his grandkids and being a grandpa," Slape said.
