Police: 3 dead, 2 injured in Jacksonville murder-suicide

Jacksonville police say three men died and two other people suffered life-threatening injuries in a murder-suicide ambush shooting early Saturday at a home on the city's Westside.

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office identified the dead as Ryan Mark Chesser, who'd turned 33 on Wednesday and lived at the home; Eric James Bryant, 32, of Folkston, Ga.; and the suspected shooter, Jacoby Lamar King, 26, of the 7400 block of Hawks Cliff Drive, Jacksonville.

Chesser and Bryant were cousins, according to family members.

Police withheld the names of the two people found shot and wounded about 3 a.m. inside a home in the 11400 block of Brian Lakes Drive North in the Adams Lake subdivision off Normandy Boulevard. Both remained hospitalized with injuries police described as serious.

Evidence and witness statements in the ongoing investigation lead detectives to believe it wasn't a random attack, said Officer Christian Hancock, a Sheriff's Office spokesman.

King reportedly had dated Chesser in the recent past, although they were not currently in a relationship when the shooting happened, Hancock said.

"It is believed, that after seeing Chesser while out hours earlier, King went to Chesser’s home and ambushed the group as they returned the home. After shooting the four victims, it is believed that King turned the firearm on himself, taking his own life," Hancock said.

Before being rushed to the hospital, a woman told police the name of the person who shot her, said Lt. Craig Waldrup of the Sheriff's Office Homicide Unit.

The murder-suicide was the second multiple shooting within three days in Jacksonville. Early Wednesday, one person was killed and five others injured near Emerson Street and Spring Park Road on the Southside.

It brings to eight the total known homicides in Jacksonville this year. That total doesn't include King, whose death police consider a suicide.

Longtime neighbors said Saturday a woman and her two brothers lived at the Brian Lakes Drive home.

Neighbors also said the home seemed to have a high turnover of residents every year or two, and possibly was a rental property. It wasn't unusual, they said, to see a lot of people and cars coming and going from the home, although the people who lived there seemed pleasant.

Saturday, they woke up to the shrill sound of sirens and strobe-like flashing of red-and-blue emergency lights on Sheriff's Office patrol cars, which, along with several Crime Scene Unit vans, remained at the scene through the afternoon.

Except for a marijuana bust at a house nearby about two or three years ago, residents said the neighborhood — with neat, well-kept lawns and single as well as split-level  homes — was fairly quiet and peaceful.

Neighbors conceded they are unnerved by the shooting.

"You just don't know. ... It's scary now that I see this," said Arturo Gloria, nodding to the police cars, crime scene vans and detectives swarming over the home.

Gloria has lived in the neighborhood since the early years of the subdivision. He likes to walk, but his normal route was blocked by the crime scene tape.

"It's sad," Gloria said.

Another neighbor, who declined to give her name, said her teenagers were awakened by the sirens, but the family didn't know a shooting had happened until after daylight, when they could see police going in and out of the home about a half-block away.

"It's scary. Very scary to have that happen so close. I mean, 'Why here?' Nothing goes down over here," she said. She doesn't even want to walk outside to the mailbox anytime soon, she said.

"I'm driving to the mailbox from now on. I'm nervous. I don't know if I even want to go to the mailbox anymore," she said.

The shooting is apparently unrelated to the week's other high-profile multiple shooting. 

Both happened amid a media blitz by Sheriff Mike Williams, Mayor Lenny Curry and State Attorney Melissa Nelson, who have been talking about their coordinated plans to reduce violent crime and gang problems.

On Wednesday, Willie Addison Jr., 25, was pronounced dead soon after a silver Chevrolet Tahoe pulled up to the emergency room at Memorial Hospital with six gunshot victims about 2 a.m., the Sheriff’s Office said.

The Sheriff's Office said at the time one of those victims was in critical condition, and the other four had non-life-threatening injuries. Police said the six ranged in age from their 20s to 40s.

The preliminary investigation showed all six were at a late-night rap music event at the Paradise Gentlemen’s Club at 8669 Baymeadows Road prior to the shooting. They left the club and drove north on Interstate 95, then exited onto Emerson Street, where the shooting took place near Spring Park Road when someone fired from another vehicle that pulled alongside, according to the Sheriff's Office.

The Sheriff's Office said that shooting "was a targeted act of violence against the occupants of the Tahoe.” Curry subsequently told WJXT TV-4 it was gang- and drug-related.

Anyone with information about either multiple shooting can contact the Sheriff’s Office at (904) 630-0500 or email JSOCrimeTips@jaxsheriff.org. To remain anonymous and receive a possible reward up to $3,000, contact Crime Stoppers at (866) 845–8477 (TIPS).

Teresa Stepzinski: (904) 359-4075