A 24-year-old teacher was gunned down in the parking lot of an elementary school Wednesday as students were arriving for their last day of classes.
Police say the killer was the woman's ex-boyfriend, who was free on bond after trying to shoot her in the head in January.Angela Collins, of Livingston, was pronounced dead at the scene shortly before 8 a.m. after being shot three times at close range as she tried to flee. Most of the students were arriving by bus on the side of the school and did not witness the shooting, school officials said.
The killer shot through the back window of Collins' car with a .30-.30 rifle and then fired at least two more shots into the car, witnesses told sheriff's officials.
Collins' ex-boyfriend, Patrick Dale Walk-er, was arrested at his home in nearby Goodrich a short time later.
"He didn't say a whole lot. He acted like he expected us to come," said Polk County Sheriff Billy Ray Nelson. "He called his mom out of the house, and I asked her if she knew what was going on, and she said, `Patrick told me he shot that girl in Shepherd.' "
Walker, 25, was charged with capital murder and was being held without bail Wednesday night in San Jacinto County Jail in Coldspring. Shepherd, a town of 1,900 about 55 miles northeast of Houston, is in San Jacinto County.
Nelson said Walker was first arrested in Polk County on the morning of Jan. 20 after he allegedly broke into Collins' trailer home in Livingston.
"He held a gun to her head and tried to pull the trigger, but it didn't go off," the sheriff said. "She got away and ran next door to get her brother, and he wrestled with him and got the gun away."
Walker then fled and was arrested at his home, Nelson said. He was released four days later on $25,000 bond. Earlier this month, a Polk County grand jury indicted him on charges of attempted murder in that incident.
Collins grew up in Livingston but attended school in Shepherd, where her mother, Nettie Collins, has taught first grade for more than 25 years, school officials said.
After graduating from Shepherd High School in 1989, Collins went to Sam Houston State University and then returned home in January with her 3-year-old son to accept a job as a pre-kindergarten teacher at Shepherd Elementary.