ESSEX, Vt. (AP) – A gunman shot four people Thursday, killing two of them, in a rampage through two homes and an elementary school that ended when he wounded himself, police said.

“At this point the scenes are secured and the community is safe,” Police Chief David Demag said about two hours after the incident was first reported. “We have a suspect in custody. The suspect has identified himself as the only shooter. He is secure.”

School was not in session; classes were scheduled to begin next week. About 39 staff were in the building preparing for the start of the school year when the gunman showed up there, Demag said.

Police later identified the shooter as Christopher Williams, 26, of Essex. They said he shot his estranged girlfriend’s mother, Linda Lambesis, 57, also of Essex, at her home before going to the school looking for her daughter, Andrea Lambesis.

He did not find Andrea Lambesis, but shot and killed a teacher at the school, Mary Shanks, 56, Demag said. He also shot and wounded one other person at the school, Mary Snedeker. Police had earlier said two were wounded at the school, but Demag said Thursday evening that wasn’t the case.

After the shootings at the school, but before police arrived on that scene, the suspect went to a condominium complex on Jericho Road, where he wounded Chad Johansen, 26, before turning the gun on himself, the chief said.

Demag said the three injured people, including the shooter, were taken to a hospital. Their conditions were not immediately known.

“To have a situation where you have three different scenes and it was still evolving, and we didn’t quite have a complete handle with regard to how many people were involved and what the motive was, is always troubling,” the chief said at an evening news conference.

Jillian Schultz, 22, a resident of the condominium building where the last two shootings occurred, said she was in the yard playing with her 13-month-old son and the 2-year-old son of a neighbor she said she knew only as “Chad” when a man – disheveled and sweating – ran past her, asking “Where’s Chad? Where’s Chad?”

Moments later, she heard four gunshots and saw bullets rip through bushes 10 feet away.

“I gathered the kids and the neighbor’s kid and I got out of there,” said Schultz.

Then she saw Chad – her neighbor, whose last name she didn’t know – come toward the building, bleeding from the back and yelling to her “Call 911! Call 911!”‘ she said.

The shooter was apprehended on a lawn between the condominiums and a neighboring greenhouse business, said witness Peter Bearor, who was arriving home from work at the time. Police at the scene would not talk to reporters.

“He was bleeding profusely,” Bearor said of the suspect. “From what I gather, he shot himself in the neck,” he said, adding that he had been told that by police on the scene.

Demag said Andrea Lambesis’ decision to break up with Williams appeared to have triggered the shootings. He said she made a non-emergency call to police shortly after midnight Thursday, saying she had had a fight with her boyfriend and broke up with him, but that he had taken her car to go to work.

“We put out a welfare check on this individual (Williams) and we were actively looking for him,” Demag said. “Sometime this morning we received a call from Andres Lambesis that the car had been returned but she had not seen the boyfriend.”

The chief said the incidents Thursday afternoon lasted between 75 and 90 minutes from the time of the first report.

Dozens of police officers from around Chittenden County, including some tactical units armed with automatic weapons, converged on the school.

One television report said about 30 staff were in the school. At one point, people could be seen running from the school, ducking their heads.

People in the school were taken to a supermarket for holding about a half mile away.

David Pariseau, of South Burlington, said his wife Ellen, a first-grade teacher at the school, called him on his cell phone and said she was among seven or eight teachers who had locked themselves into a classroom.

Pariseau said the group eventually was taken to the supermarket, where they were not being allowed to talk with reporters. “I’m very much relieved,” he said.

AP-ES-08-24-06 2025EDT