Florida bank shooting victims, 4 employees and 1 customer, are all women

SEBRING, Fla. – The five people fatally shot in a Florida bank were all women, and four worked for SunTrust, but investigators said Thursday that the rampage was a random act.

Customer Cynthia Watson and bank employee Marisol Lopez were among the victims, according to Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund. He said families of the other three people who died requested the names not be released.

But the Associated Press reported late Thursday that two of the other victims were publicly identified by family members. They were 38-year-old Ana Pinon Willliams, a mother of seven, and 31-year-old Jessica Montague.

Investigators had not determined why Zephen Xaver, 21, barricaded himself inside the bank branch Wednesday and opened fire. Xaver walked into the bank at 12:30 p.m., "overtook the bank by force (and) shot everyone in the bank," Hoglund said. 

At 12:36 p.m., Xaver called 911 and told the dispatcher he had killed five people, Hoglund said. Police arrived four minutes later. After Xaver refused to allow officers into the bank, a SWAT team rushed in at 1:54 p.m., and Xaver surrendered, Hoglund said.

The slayings did not appear to be part of a robbery, and Xaver had no apparent connection to the SunTrust branch or the victims.

“We believe it was a random act,” Hoglund said Thursday at a news conference. “Aside from perhaps driving by and seeing it was a bank, we have no known evidence that he targeted this bank for any particular reason.”

Sebring Mayor John Shoop said residents of the quiet, central Florida town of 10,000 were stunned by the tragedy.

"We have not changed, but our world has," Shoop said. "This event will pass, but unfortunately, it will never be forgotten."

A judge ordered the former prison guard trainee held without bond on five counts of first-degree murder Thursday. 

Xaver was hired in November to work at the nearby Avon Park Correctional Institution but quit two weeks ago without explanation. Sharon Spillane, a neighbor of Xaver, said that she did not see him often but that he seemed normal.

"He was just quiet," she said. "I am in shock. ... I never in a million years would have thought he would be that type of person. But he is."

Xaver relocated to Florida from Indiana. Alex Gerlach told WSBT-TV in Indiana she had an on-and-off relationship with Xaver for two years and had kept in contact every few months since. She said he often talked about wanting to hurt people.

"I never understood where it started," she told the station. "For some reason, (he) always hated people and wanted everyone to die."

She said he bought a gun last week, but she and others had shrugged it off because he always liked firearms.

“Every single person I’ve told has not taken it seriously, and it’s very unfortunate that it had to come to this,” Gerlach said.

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Families of the victims had the right to withhold their loved ones' names under Amendment 6, approved by voters in November, which broadens the rights of crime victims and their families.

On Thursday, an Indiana police department released a 2014 report in which Xaver, then 16, said he had dreams of hurting other students in a classroom.

The report from the Bremen Police Department said Bremen High School Principal Bruce Jennings contacted police on Feb. 20, 2014, after Xaver reported having the dream the previous night and again during a nap at school. The report said Xaver’s mother agreed to take him to a behavioral health center. Police took no further action.

Authorities also released log entries of other incidents involving Xaver, including one in March 2017, when Michigan State Police advised that a girl was receiving messages from Xaver that indicated he was “possibly thinking of suicide by cop and taking hostages.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis urged "very swift and exacting justice." He asked the public to keep the victims and families in their prayers.

The shooting took place about 150 miles north of Parkland, where 17 students and teachers were killed in a 19-year-old gunman's rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School less than one year ago.

David Hogg, who survived that mass shooting, took notice on Twitter: "Five people where killed today in Florida and our government continues to send their thoughts and prayers. #Enough"

The rampage marks the 19th mass shooting in 2019, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit organization that provides online public access to information about gun-related violence. The numbers include incidents in which four or more people were shot or killed, not including the shooters, according to the archive.

Contributing: Mary Helen Moore and J.D. Gallop, Florida Today; The Associated Press