According to Georgia authorities, two persons were shot and killed at a Walmart on Wednesday afternoon. The incident is being investigated as a possible murder-suicide.
The police chief in Hiram, Georgia, Mike Turner, said the incident occurred at the Walmart on Jimmy Lee Smith Parkway at around 7:30 p.m.
Turner stated that the two victims, a man and a woman, were “younger individuals” who had been in a relationship.
“From what we can see, this was a shooting between people who were already familiar with one another. There was no active shooter situation here. According to Turner, this demonstrated “some sort of past relationship” between the parties involved.
The report states that police located a man and a woman with gunshot wounds and took them to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital for treatment. They were both pronounced DOA.
James Wyatt NicholasNorton (26) and Zoey Nicole Messenger (20), both residents of Hiram, were involved in the shooting. It is believed Norton killed Messenger and then took his own life.
According to reports, shoppers who heard gunfire fled the building.
Devani Lopez, a bystander, told the media that she fled to the correct exit after hearing the second gunshot because she thought it had come from her left. She looked around and saw people fleeing for their lives.
In a statement issued Wednesday night, Walmart expressed “heartbreak” over the incident and promised to cooperate fully with authorities.
Last year, six people, including the shooter, were killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia. Several lesser shootings have occurred at the major retail chain locations in the past few years.
In 2022, almost two weeks after the massacre in Chesapeake, a gunman opened fire outside a Walmart in Marietta, Georgia.
The distance between Hiram and Marietta is roughly 15 miles.
The circumstances surrounding the incident are still being looked into.
