The gunman who rampaged through a Northern California community Tuesday, killing four people and wounding several others as he fired at an elementary school and apparently random strangers, had killed his wife the night before, according to authorities.
After fatally shooting his wife, Kevin Neal hid her body in their home and, hours later, embarked upon a bloody shooting spree through the rural region, targeting anybody he encountered along the way, Phil Johnston, an assistant sheriff in Tehama County, said Wednesday at a briefing.
Johnston said that before law enforcement officers killed Neal, the gunman wounded several children, striking one of the students at Rancho Tehama Elementary School during his rampage. Chillingly, Johnston said that the attack “could have been so much worse,” because the gunman had apparently sought to enter the school while it was filled with children.
Neal, wielding a semiautomatic rifle and wearing a vest holding extra ammunition, had rammed the school’s fence and tried to enter the building early Tuesday morning. However, because school officials had heard gunfire that morning, they hurried children and teachers inside and locked the school down, keeping the gunman outside, Johnston said.
“It is monumental that that school went on lockdown,” Johnston said Wednesday. “I truly believe we would have had a horrific bloodbath in that school if that school hadn’t taken the action that it did.”
The gunman spent six minutes firing at the school, shooting out windows and spraying children with glass and hitting at least one child with a round, Johnston said. But when he could not get inside, he appeared frustrated and moved on, Johnston said.
Johnston said Neal had shot his wife sometime late Monday, cut a hole in his floor and hid her body there. When police showed up Tuesday and spoke to neighbors, they reported thinking “there was a domestic violence incident” involving the couple Monday, but it was not reported to authorities, Johnston said. He added that such incidents were “a very common thing with this couple” but did not elaborate.
The gunman, who was officially identified Wednesday as local resident Kevin Neal, fired at cars and vehicles as he passed them. He was ultimately killed when law enforcement officers rammed his car and exchanged fire with him, fatally wounding him about 25 minutes after the first 911 call came in.
Story by “the Washington Post”
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