NATALIA, Texas — A man suspected of killing eight people in a Chicago suburb is believed to have fatally shot himself after a confrontation with law enforcement officials in Natalia, Texas, according to a Facebook post by the Joliet (Illinois) Police Department.
Joliet police said seven victims were found shot and killed in two different homes on the same block on Monday afternoon, launching a manhunt for the suspect. They also believed that a fatal shooting Sunday was somehow connected to the mass-casualty incident.
At about 8:30 p.m., Nance was located by U.S. Marshals at the Chubby's Travel Center in Natalia, at which time it is believed that Nance took his own life with a handgun following a confrontation, Joliet police said.
Police identified the suspect in the Joliet killings as 23-year-old Romeo Nance and said they thought he was driving a red Toyota Camry with Illinois license plate Q730412. They said he knew the victims in the two homes, who are all believed to be related.
Medina County Sheriff Randy Brown said there was "a possible pursuit coming out of Bexar County. It ended up here. At this location, the suspect of multiple homicides was basically cornered. And at some point in there, he took his own life."
"The threat -- the suspect -- was neutralized. There's no threat to the community," Brown said. "That's something we're just trying to put out on Facebook early because, you know, of course everybody gets concerned. They don't know what's going on."
Natalia is 30 miles southwest of San Antonio, about 115 miles from the border with Mexico and 1,200 miles from Joliet.
Police in Will County in Illinois and Joliet previously said they did not know of a motive for the killings, but said Nance knew the victims. The FBI's fugitive task force had been assisting local police in the search for the suspect, Joliet Police Chief William Evans said.
“I've been a policeman 29 years and this is probably the worst crime scene I've ever been associated with,” Evans said during a news conference outside the Joliet homes Monday evening.
Will County Chief Deputy Dan Jungles said during the Monday news conference that deputies had been staking out one of the houses since Sunday evening in case Nance, the suspect in the first fatal shooting they discovered, returned to them. Nance's last known address was one of the homes, police said.
When no one showed, deputies finally went to the door of one of the houses. No one answered so they crossed the street to the other house, which they knew was linked to the first house and found the first bodies. Five bodies were found in one house and two bodies were found in the other.
Jungles said he didn’t have any indication yet of how long the people in the houses had been dead. He said that autopsies were pending.
Evans said the victims found Monday in the houses were family members. Asked if the victims were members of the suspect’s family, Jungles said he couldn’t comment except to say that the suspect knew them.
Natalia ISD Board of Trustees President Eric Smith recalls recognizing student accomplishments during a school board meeting Monday night when suddenly his phone started going off with alerts about a massive police presence at the gas station nearby.
Smith, who grew up in Natalia, praised the collective law enforcement response to ensure the community's safety.
"Even though it's states away, it's always sad to hear of somebody taking innocent lives for whatever reason, but it's also just a daily reminder of how important family is and you're never guaranteed a tomorrow and like I said, to always be on your toes as a small community to make sure that everybody's alert and vigilant," Smith said.
Antonio Garcia, another Natalia resident, admits he was surprised when hearing about the gas station situation because he's quite familiar with the area in Illinois where the homicides took place.
"I was sitting on the couch and I tell my wife, 'Look, look, look, look. Born in Mexico, but I lived in Illinois for 45 years, matter of fact from where the guy come from in Jolie, Illinois," Garcia said. "Over here (Natalia) this place is really, really, really peaceful because I live here for about two and a half years and believe it or not, I never had like that. I heard about a lot of problems in San Antonio but not here."
