Story highlights

John Houser killed two people and injured nine others

Semiautomatic pistol he used was legally purchased last year from a pawn shop

CNN  — 

John Russell “Rusty” Houser methodically shot 11 people in a Lafayette, Louisiana, movie theater using a handgun he legally purchased from an Alabama pawn shop, authorities said Friday.

Houser stood up Thursday evening in the theater where the comedy “Trainwreck” was showing and fired off one 10-round clip, Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft said at a press conference.

He killed two women and injured nine other people before he turned the gun on himself.

“This was slow and methodical,” Gov. Bobby Jindal said. “This was not a single burst.”

Shooter had left, but returned

Houser, 59, left the theater through a side door and headed toward his 1995 Lincoln, but saw a police cruiser arrive in the parking lot.

map lafayette theater shooting

He reloaded his handgun, reentered the theater and fired three more rounds, according to authorities. Then he fatally shot himself in the head.

“Out of 20 rounds he shot 11 people, but some people suffered multiple wounds,” Craft said. “One person was shot four times.”

Two women in the theater were killed and nine were wounded. By Saturday afternoon, three patients remained hospitalized in two area hospitals: two listed in good condition at Lafayette General Medical Center and one in fair condition at Our Lady of Lourdes, according to CNN affiliate KATC.

Handgun bought legally

The Hi-Point .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol Houser used was legally purchased last year from a pawn shop in Phenix City, Alabama, Craft said.

Drew Griffin, a senior investigative correspondent for CNN, said it appears Houser was cleared to buy the gun because he didn’t have any convictions for serious crimes.

John Houser

Police don’t know why he opened fire in the theater or why he came to Lafayette, about 500 miles from his stomping grounds in Georgia and Alabama.

Besides an uncle who died about 35 years ago, Houser, 59, didn’t have any known connection to the city of 120,000.

He arrived on July 2 or 3 and had been staying in a motel, Craft said. He had just borrowed $5,000 from his mother, said Louisiana State Police Col. Michael Edmonson, but “he needed money.”

Rem Houser of Hamilton, Georgia, told CNN before his brother John “showed up out of the blue” and borrowed the money, he hadn’t been in contact with the family for about 10 years. He said his sibling needed the money to “continue moving on, living and surviving,” he said. “So, we gave him some and that was the last we heard of him.”

Craft said police are researching Houser’s movements and reading his journals and his online political blogs, in which he railed against government. There’s no indication he had an accomplice, Edmonson said.

There’s no indication he had an accomplice.

Acted like any other patron, then randomly opened fire

Houser had a history of legal and mental problems. In 2008, his then-wife took out a restraining order against him, saying she was “fearful of him,” police said.

The one-time political candidate from Columbus, Georgia, spent time that year and the next getting treated for mental health issues. Last year, he was evicted from a house he used to own in Phenix City, Alabama, and returned to vandalize the property, the sheriff there said.

On Thursday night, he bought a ticket for the showing of “Trainwreck,” a romantic comedy. About 25 people were in the screening room and 300 total in the multiscreen movie complex.

Houser settled into the theater’s second-to-last row, which was where Randall Mann’s 21-year-old daughter was sitting.

Another man in the theater told Keifer Sanders, who was watching another movie, that “there was no argument, nothing going on at all. And a guy just stood up and started opening fire.”

Colorado shooting happened 3 years ago

There are clues suggesting this wasn’t a spontaneous act. Searches of Houser’s hotel room and vehicle turned up wigs, glasses and other apparent disguises. He also had swapped out the license plate on his car, which would have made it harder to track him if he’d escaped.

The bloodshed comes three years after James Holmes burst into an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater showing the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises” and opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring more than 70 others.

His story has been in the headlines recently, because of a Colorado jury’s decision to convict him on murder charges. The next step for the jurors is to decide whether he will be sentenced to death.

“It certainly is a coincidence that Colorado had that trial,” Craft said. “We’re looking at those similarities. We don’t have any indication that he watched that or anything.”

The victims

Friends and families are grieving the two women killed.

Jillian Johnson, 33, a Lafayette native who died at a hospital, operated a gift and toy shop in Lafayette. She played the ukulele and guitar for The Figs.

Mayci Breaux, 21, was killed at the scene. She was a student at Louisiana State University-Eunice and worked at a boutique. Breaux will be laid to rest Monday in Franklin.

Her boyfriend of about three years, Matthew Rodriguez, was shot in the neck and armpit, according to his cousin.

CNN’s Yasmin Khorram, Greg Botelho, Jason Hanna, Ray Sanchez, AnneClaire Stapleton, Brian Stelter, Ed Payne, Ralph Ellis, Kevin Conlon, Linh Tran, Sam Stringer and Tony Marco contributed to this report.