Police say the suspect, Eulalio Tordil, 62, was caught in the parking lot of another mall in the Aspen Hill area, not far from the site of Friday’s second shooting.
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Police in Maryland said three people were hurt after a shooting outside a mall in the Washington suburbs.
Tordil was on leave, having surrendered his gun and badge after his wife obtained a protective order to keep him away, an official with the Federal Protective Service said.
Not long after, a woman was shot dead in the parking lot of a mall in the nearby Aspen Hill region. “Same Boston Market, we were in the same parking lot during the sniper shootings”.
But plainclothes officers who canvassed the area after the shooting noticed a silver auto matching the tag and description of a vehicle related to Thursday evening’s killing of Tordil’s wife, local authorities said.
Then, he drove to a supermarket five miles away in Silver Spring, where he fatally shot a woman who was sitting in her auto, police said. Three people were also wounded in the shootings. “They were also shot”, said Assistant Police Chief Darryl McSwain.
CBS News correspondent Kris Van Cleave reports court documents show just weeks ago Gladys Tordil received a protective order against her husband.
Some 14 schools were temporarily placed on lockdown after the two shootings on Friday.
Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger told a news conference the officers were waiting for the right moment to safely make an arrest.
Police had “no reason to believe the victims knew the suspect”, McSwain said.
That detail was in a flier the Prince George’s County Police Department released Thursday asking for the public’s help to locate Eulalio Tordil.
Tordil, a federal law enforcement officer, was previously charged with first-degree murder in the Thursday shooting death of his estranged wife, authorities said.
The preliminary investigation reveals Tordil followed his estranged wife on to school property as she came to pick up her children.
The bystander’s wounds were not life-threatening, and police say that the shooter’s attacks became random after he fled the scene.
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The D.C.-area snipers, who killed 10 people in 2002, passed through the area, Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said. Tordil was put on administrative leave from the service earlier in the year.
