Louisiana Theater Shooter Identified, Motive Uncertain

Houser was treated in the Phenix City area for an unspecified mental illness in 2008 and 2009, said Heath Taylor, the sheriff of Russell County, Ala.

Inside, officers found that Houser had poured concrete into the drains, and cemented the fuse box shut. He splattered paint and human waste all over the walls.

Hotel officials say John Houser parked his Lincoln Town auto in a stall on the backside of the hotel every night that he was there.

“He had gas everywhere, he had chemicals and he had magnesium on a down draft stove for it to catch fire and burn out the thing”.

“He was like a kitten”, the man said in a thick Cajun accent.

Mayci Breaux was with her longtime boyfriend at a Lafayette, Louisiana theater on Thursday night when she another local woman, Jillian Johnson, were shot and killed at the hands of drifter John Russell Houser.

An April 2001 story shows Houser pleading with the city’s council to let him keep his license. Since the early ’90s, he had built a reputation as an oddball. “He could make the phones ring”.

Rem Houser told The Advocate that he brother was very bright, but went awry after college. In 1989, court records show another judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation after Houser was arrested for allegedly hiring an arsonist to torch his lawyer’s office. His office felt an arson arrest and domestic violence with his wife made them question his character, and that was enough – so that’s what they did.

Since the shooting, one church member in particular who prayed with Houser has been beating herself up, Bourque said. Thus, Houser’s name never was entered into the NICS database.

Houser had an nearly relaxed posture, Knepper said, as he kept shooting and shooting and shooting.

Superior Court Judge Bobby Peters, the former mayor of Columbus, described Houser as having a “combative attitude”. Houser protests by hoisting a banner including a Nazi swastika.

But at that time, the laws were different.it was the left to the sheriff’s discretion. Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, said he’d been on the group’s radar since 2005. “Fine guy; loved his wife and child”.

He also posted on a forum dedicated to the New York chapter of Golden Dawn, Greece’s far-right neo-Nazi political party.

Houser then missed his eviction court date, and the Bones decided to go to the house with an officer. The owner said Houser was polite and unremarkable. He was pretty even-keeled until you disagreed with him or made him mad. “Then he became your sworn enemy”.

April 21, 2008 – Houser shows up at daughter’s workplace opposing her upcoming marriage.

She said her husband was on daily medications for manic-depression and bipolar disorder at the time. Agents wanted to know about Houser. One woman jumped on top of the other to shield her from the gunfire, and Martin, wounded, got herself to a fire alarm and pulled it, sending out the call for help.

By this spring, relatives had lost touch with Houser. Houser’s wife filed for divorce in March. He damaged the fireplace and vandalized the house before he left. “These were individuals who, I think, that somewhere, somebody didn’t do their job in the standpoint of enforcing the laws that are only on the book”, Perry said on CNN’s “State of the Union”.

Police weren’t sure why Houser ended up in Louisiana years after becoming estranged from family living in Alabama and Georgia. Craft said 15 shell casings were found in the theater and that it appears Houser tried to escape, but ran back into the theater when he saw police pulling into the parking lot. Police will be at ticket booths and will even patrol outside with their lights on.