Delaware police authorities responded to reports of gunshots fired inside the New Castle County Courthouse on Monday morning, The News Journal reported. Delaware State Police Sgt. Paul Shavack confirmed three people died in the shooting at the Wilmington courthouse. He said the suspected gunman and two women are dead.
The assailant was initially identified by sources and law enforcement as David T. Matusiewicz, a former optometrist who spent time in federal prison for kidnapping his three daughters and for bank fraud in 2007. But those sources now the gunman was actually his father, Thomas Matusiewicz. After the shooting, Thomas was reportedly killed by police, Wilmington Mayor Dennis Williams told reporters .Another woman, who has yet to be identified, was also killed in the incident.
One of the victims of Monday's shooting included Christine Belford, 39, the gunman's former daughter-in-law, sources said. Two police officers were also transported to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
According to reports, Matusiewicz entered the lobby of the New Castle County Courthouse at about 8:10 a.m. and began shooting, said State Police Sgt. Paul Shavack. The gunman acted alone, and his acts were not an act of terrorism. Hours after the shooting, there was still a heavy police presence around the courthouse and streets were still blocked off in the early afternoon, according to the AP.
"I saw two shots. I saw people going on the ground so I just made a U-turn and ran out the building," Jose Beltran, a Court of Common Pleas worker told the News Journal in Wilmington, and was reported on CNN.
Matusiewicz kidnapped his three young daughters in August, 2007, amid a custody battle with his ex-wife. He reportedly abducted the girls to Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico and Nicaragua over 18-months where in March 2009 authorities found him, his mother and the girls - ages 4, 6 and 7, living in a dirty and cramped trailer. He was sentenced to four years for kidnapping and forging Belford's name to get a $249,000 home equity loan from Wilmington Saving Fund Society.
While in prison he continued trying to get joint custody and have visits with the girls, but his parental rights were then terminated. Matusiewicz and Belford were married from October 2001 until their November 2006 divorce. By August 2007, an international manhunt was placed on Matusiewicz, drawing national media attention, according to The News Journal.
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