• Cops: Delaware courthouse shooter killed ex-daughter-in-law over custody dispute

    Joseph Kaczmarek / AP

    A law enforcement official makes his way around the perimeter outside the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington, Del., on Monday.

    By Andrew Mach, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Delaware authorities have identified the suspected gunman and the victims of a shooting at a courthouse on Monday that left three people dead and two injured.


    Police say 68-year-old Thomas Matusiewicz walked into the lobby of the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington, Del., at around 8 a.m. ET and shot and killed his former daughter-in-law Christine Belford, 39, and her friend, Laura Mulford, 47.

    "He walked right up to the first victim and shot her point-blank right in the chest," Bill Heriot, a plaintiff in a court case told NBCPhiladelphia.com. "He then turned around and shot a second woman who was approximately 10 feet away."

    Matusiewicz also shot and injured two Capitol Police officers, both wearing bulletproof vests, in the chest, identified as Steven Rinehart and Michael Manley, Delaware State Police Sgt. Paul Shavak said.

    Witnesses said during a heated exchange of gunfire, the two officers shot and killed Matusiewicz as he was reloading his weapon, NBCPhiladelphia.com reported.

    The injured officers were taken to nearby Christiana Hospital, treated and released. 

    Belford was due in court for a child support hearing with her estranged husband David Matusiewicz, 45, the gunman's son, Shavak said.

    David Matusiewicz was released from federal prison in Texas last year after being convicted in Delaware federal court of bank fraud and kidnapping the couple's daughters, ages 11, 10 and 7.

    Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said the shooting was not a random act of violence, but based on their preliminary investigation, "a result of a custody dispute that lasted in our court system for several years."

    Defense attorney Brian Chapman told NBCPhiladelphia.com that the building’s security is normally very tight.

    "There are at least four or five rows of metal detectors when you go in, you put your belongings through, then you have to walk through the metal detectors,” Chapman said. “Then there are usually eight to 10 police with wands checking everyone and after that you still have to walk by a desk where capitol police sit."

    Upon reports of the incident, dozens of police cars, ambulances and fire trucks flooded the scene, and the streets were cordoned off for several blocks, DelawareOnline.com reported.

    The courthouse was placed on lockdown while investigators and search teams canvassed and later evacuated the 12-story building.

    Five elementary schools and one high school in the area were on also lockdown Monday morning.

    In a statement, Delaware Governor Jack Markell, while not on the scene, said, "Our thoughts and prayers right now are with the victims of this senseless violence and the Capitol police officers who put their lives on the line to protect the courts and public every day."

    The New Castle County courthouse was closed on Tuesday.

  • Two women, gunman die in Delaware courthouse shooting

    View more videos at: http://nbcphiladelphia.com.

    By Andrew Mach, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A man opened fire at a Delaware courthouse on Monday, killing two women and wounding two others before he was fatally shot, officials said.


    The shooting occurred at around 8 a.m. ET at the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington, Del., when the gunman was stopped by Capitol Police at a security checkpoint inside the main lobby, Mayor Dennis Williams told NBC10 in Philadelphia. The court was not yet open.

    Delaware State Police Sgt. Paul Shavack said that the two people wounded were Capitol Police officers. They were transported to Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., with non-life threatening injuries.

    Shavack said the suspect exchanged gunfire with officers in the lobby. It was not immediately known whether the suspect was killed by police or died of a self-inflicted wound.

    Police said they have preliminary identification of the gunman, who was in his late 20s to early 30s, but would not yet release that information.

    Shavack said investigators and search teams were canvassing the 12-story courthouse building as a precaution to protect those still inside, but they believed the area was secure.

    “We believe that this is a lone gunman but we continue to operate under procedure,” Shavack told reporters outside the courthouse Monday.

    Defense attorney Brian Chapman told NBCPhiladelphia.com that the building’s security personnel make it very hard to breach security.

    "There are at least four or five rows of metal detectors when you go in, you put your belongings through, then you have to walk through the metal detectors,” Chapman said. “Then there are usually eight to 10 police with wands checking everyone and after that you still have to walk by a desk where capitol police sit."

    Dozens of police cars, ambulances and fire trucks were on the scene, and the streets were cordoned off for several blocks around the courthouse, DelawareOnline.com reported.

    Five elementary schools and one high school in the area were on lockdown Monday morning.

    This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

  • Woman killed in hit-and-run had been struck on same road

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    Edith A. McFarland, shown advocating for Sunday DART bus service in 2005, was killed in a hit-and-run accident Tuesday.

    By msnbc.com

     

    A wheelchair-bound woman who was killed when she was hit by three cars Tuesday had lost her leg in a previous hit-and-run accident on the same city road in Wilmington, Del., a friend told NBC Philadelphia.

    Edith McFarland, 58, was trying to get across South Market Street, a busy road near the Fairview Inn, where she had been living for the past three months, when she was struck at 6:35 p.m. on Tuesday, Delaware State Police said.

     "After the impact, McFarland was ejected from her wheelchair into the southbound lanes of South Market Street, where she was then struck by two additional vehicles," investigators said in a statement.

    Police said the disabled woman was hit first by a gold truck or SUV. All three drivers fled the scene without stopping and have yet to be apprehended.

    McFarland was pronounced dead at the scene in the state's first fatal accident of the year, police said.

    The first hit-and-run happened 25 years ago, her friend, Robin Smith, told NBC Philadelphia. South Market Street is also known as Route 13, and McFarland's first accident happened just a few miles further down the road on Route 13, reported CBSPhilly.com.

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    Edith A. McFarland was killed in a hit-and-run accident Tuesday night at the entrance to the Fairview Inn on South Market Street, also designated U.S. 13, south of Wilmington.

    "To be taken off of this earth the same way she lost her leg, it’s just, it heavies my heart," Smith said.

    Smith implored the drivers who hit her friend to turn themselves in.

    "I think it's cruel. How can you hit somebody in a wheelchair and keep going?" she said. "I pray to God that whoever hit her, that their heart would be so heavy that they would turn themselves in and that justice would be made for her and her family."

     Sources told NBC Philadelphia that McFarland was returning from the grocery store when she was killed.

    Read the full story on NBCPhiladelphia.com

    "She was a good woman," McFarland's son Jeremy told NBC Philadelphia, unable to hold back tears. "We didn’t have very much anyway, but she would give anyone what she had, you know."

    Police said they had interviewed witnesses and asked anyone with information to call the Delaware State Police.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

  • Crews from all over head to hurricane zones

    Emergency and recovery agencies across the eastern U.S. are loading up to pitch in with local crews in the areas expected to be hardest hit by Hurricane Irene. Amy Cowan of NBC station WCNC-TV in Charlotte, N.C., visited the Salvation Army's crews in Charlotte, which was preparing to drive to Wilmington on the North Carolina coast, to see how they prepare.