CHICAGOA man suspected of fatally shooting eight people in the Chicago suburbs appears to have committed suicide after a confrontation with law enforcement in Texas, police said Monday night.
Police in Joliet, Illinois, said on Facebook that Romeo Nance, 23, had been located by U.S. Marshals around 8:30 p.m. near Natalia, Texas, and that Nance had shot himself. himself after a confrontation.
Medina County police in Texas received a tip about a person suspected of the deaths in Chicago who was heading to the area on Interstate 35, according to local police on Facebook. Nance was then surrounded by officers from several agencies at a gas station, where the suspect shot himself, Medina police said.
Nance was suspected of killing eight people in three locations around Chicago, triggering a search operation and putting residents on edge Monday, as police warned that he remained at large and should be considered “armed and dangerous.”
Joliet and Will County police previously said they did not know the motive for the murders, but noted that the man knew his victims. The FBI was working with local police to find the suspect, according to Joliet Police Chief William Evans.
The victims were located between Sunday and Monday in three different locations, authorities said Monday.
One of the victims was found Sunday inside a Will County home. The other seven were located Monday at two residences in Joliet.
Authorities also believed Nance was connected to another shooting in Joliet where a man was wounded on Sunday, but they declined to comment on the details.
“I’ve been a police officer for 29 years and this is probably one of the worst crime scenes I’ve ever worked on,” Evans said during a news conference held Monday afternoon outside one of the residences.
Will County Deputy Sheriff Dan Jungles said at the news conference that officers had been standing guard at one of the homes since Sunday night in case the suspect in that day’s shootings returned to the scene. . When no one showed up, the agents finally knocked on the door of one of the homes. No one responded, so they tried the other house, which they knew was related to the first, and found the first bodies. Jungles did not release further details.
Jungles added that so far he had no indication of how long the people inside the residences had been dead. He indicated that autopsies are pending.
Evans said the victims inside the residences were part of a family. When asked if they were related to the suspect, Jungles said he could not comment on the matter, but clarified that the suspect knew them.
Teresa Smart lives about a block from where seven of the victims were found and said she was worried she and her family wouldn’t be able to sleep Monday night.
“This is too close,” he said, adding that police cars had blocked streets throughout the neighborhood.
“I kept looking out the window and checking my doors,” he said. “It’s very scary.”
Hours earlier on Monday, Joliet police posted on Facebook that they were investigating the deaths of “multiple” people and shared a photograph of the man and images of a vehicle, which was identified by authorities as a red Toyota Camry.
Will County police shared images of the same vehicle on Facebook on Monday, noting that the car had been seen at the scene of two other shootings Sunday afternoon.
Source: With information from AP
