A man fatally shot a woman he had stalked for more than a year, then killed a restaurant manager who tried to intervene before turning the gun on himself Friday, police said.
The manager of Humperdink's, an upscale bar and grill where the shooting happened, was identified as Todd Brigham, said Brad Strib-ling, spokesman for the 23-restaurant chain based in Tacoma, Wash.The names of the woman and the stalker, who also died, were withheld pending notification of relatives.
The woman's family issued a statement saying that the man had been stalking her for more than a year.
"This was not a domestic dispute. This was not somebody that she was married to or seeing," said Reenie Collins, a spokeswoman at RHD Memorial Medical Center.
Witnesses said the woman was sitting with another customer in a booth at lunch hour when the shooter approached and began arguing with her.
"They were very animated," Stribling told Dallas-Fort Worth television station KXAS.
Brigham tried to intervene. A few moments later, the man shot the woman, then turned and shot Brigham in the neck or head, Stribling said.
"The fact that he was trying to get in between these two people is what did him in," Stribling said of Brigham. "He always was trying to keep things running smooth. That's part of the reason he's gone, I guess."
Witnesses said the man shot the woman several more times after shooting Brigham.
"We heard a gunshot . . . we just stayed under the table until we didn't hear anything else," said David Culvert.
Police were questioning several dozen customers who were inside at the time of the shooting. Police recovered a weapon and towed the shooter's car from the scene.
The gunman used a .45-caliber, semiautomatic Glock 21 handgun, used by many police departments.