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By Kerry Sanders, Minyvonne Burke and Associated Press
A woman identifying herself as the ex-girlfriend of the suspect in a mass shooting inside a Florida bank says he often thought about hurting people and has long been fascinated with death and guns.
WSBT in South Bend, Indiana, reported that Alex Gerlach said she tried to warn people about Zephen Xaver’s potential for harm. Xaver was arrested by a SWAT team inside a SunTrust Bank branch in Sebring, Florida, on Wednesday after he called 911 to say he opened fire.
The 21-year-old former prison guard trainee was wearing a t-shirt which appeared to depict the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, from the Book of Revelation in the Bible, when he was taken into custody.
Five people were killed in the shooting, four of whom were employees at the bank, sources told NBC News. The identities of the victims were not immediately released.
One of the workers, a mother of two, had been hired only within the last couple, the sources said. The fifth victim killed was a customer at the bank.
Another employee at the bank was able to escape out a back door and called 911, according to sources.
Gerlach told the station in a phone interview that for some reason, Xaver “always hated people and wanted everybody to die.”
She said “he got kicked out of school for having a dream that he killed everybody in his class, and he’s been threatening this for so long.”
Gerlach said “every single person I’ve told has not taken it seriously, and it’s very unfortunate that it had to come to this.”
The Washington Post also interviewed Gerlach, reporting among other things that Xaver told her last week that he had purchased a gun. She told the Post that “no one thought anything of it” because he had always liked guns.
A family friend said she was “in shock” to learn that Xaver has been arrested for the mass shooting.
“They’re a very normal family, he was definitely a normal person,” Sharon Spillane told Fox13. Spillane said she lives next door to Xaver and is friends with his parents.
“I would have never in a million years thought anything like this ever ever would have happened,” she said.
Investigators said Xaver called police from inside the SunTrust Bank branch Wednesday to report that he had opened fire. He barricaded himself inside and when negotiations failed, the SWAT team burst in, capturing Xaver and discovering the bodies, police said. Investigators did not offer a possible motive, and a police spokesman said he did not know if the attack began as a robbery.
Late Wednesday, police investigators still swarmed the bank, which sits between a hotel and a hair salon located in a business district of U.S. 27. The four-lane highway passes through farming communities and small towns as it connects South Florida and central Florida. Sebring, with 10,000 residents, is known internationally for its annual 12 Hours of Sebring endurance auto race that draws world-class drivers.
“Today’s been a tragic day in our community,” Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund said during a news conference. “We’ve suffered significant loss at the hands of a senseless criminal doing a senseless crime.”
He said more information would be released at a Thursday morning press conference.
