Whispers and pleas punctuated by gunshots retold the horror of "the darkest moment in Jacksonville history" as authorities released the audio tapes of calls reporting a gunman's rampage.
"We're being killed!" whispered an employee as James Edward Pough blazed away with a clip-loaded rifle. "Send the, send the SWAT team now!"The tapes of the 911 calls from the General Motors Acceptance Corp. office were made public Tuesday.
Pough killed eight people and wounded five before committing suicide at the auto-loan agency Monday. A day earlier, he shot two people to death on a street, police said.
"What a waste, what a damn waste," said Ray David, whose wife, Janice, died in the office massacre. The couple had two sons, ages 12 and 10.
David, a lawyer, said he will bury his wife at a cemetery near their home so he and the boys can bicycle to the grave site.
Funeral services were scheduled Thursday for Janice David and five other victims.
Mayor Tommy Hazouri called the shootings "the darkest moment in Jacksonville history."
"It is every city's and every mayor's nightmare," he said.
On the tapes, the callers' voices reflected terror as the gunman killed four of the victims as they tried to hide under office furniture.
"He's still in there shooting . . . shooting everybody! Come on!" implored Barry Kimbal, an employee who ran to a neighboring business to call for help.
Authorities said the 42-year-old Pough had a violent past, a failing marriage and an arsenal of weapons because of a quirk in Florida law.
He had pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for shooting a man to death in 1971, but the judge allowed his record to be erased after five years' probation.
Under the law, convicted felons may not own firearms. But Pough "was not technically a convicted felon," Assistant State Attorney John Delaney said.
Police said Pough had shot and killed a man and a woman Sunday in a prostitution-related dispute and wounded two teenagers about 10 minutes later.
Ballistics tests Tuesday confirmed that the .30-caliber rifle used in the GMAC killings was used in the Sunday shootings, Sheriff Jim McMillan said. Pough also had a 9mm machine pistol, which authorities found in his car.
For the past year, Pough, who went by the nickname "Pop," had been doing construction maintenance at the Anheuser-Busch brewery for the W.W. Gay Construction Co. Separated from his wife, Theresa, Pough lived in a rundown duplex.
According to friend and former neighbor Vanessa Gadsden, Pough changed after his mother's death three years ago.
"After his momma was dead, he said he didn't have anything to live for," said Gadsden, according to the Miami Herald. "He always said, when he leaves this world, he was going to take someone with him."
Gadsden said Pough's outbursts were directed against his wife.
A circuit court granted Theresa Pough an injunction earlier this year barring Pough from contacting her for one year.