Thomas and Sharon Brazil sat in their car Friday morning outside the only grocery store in Fordyce, Ark., discussing what they wanted to buy to put on the grill that evening. Then they noticed an armed man approaching them.
He looked at them, Mr. Brazil said, “and he fired.” Mr. Brazil, a 65-year-old minister, was shot in the forehead, above the right eye. Ms. Brazil was cut by broken glass. They went to the hospital but both survived. They were among the lucky ones.
In total, police said the shooter killed three people and injured 10 others after opening fire at the Mad Butcher grocery store. On Saturday, this town of 3,400, located about 70 miles south of Little Rock, was only beginning to absorb the impact of the bloodshed, as few details began to emerge.
“I just don’t have the words,” said Kasey Langley, whose daughter owns a flower shop a few doors from the Mad Butcher. “I woke up this morning thinking it was all a dream. It didn’t happen, but it happened.
Authorities have not released the names of the deceased. But one of the victims was Shirley Kay Taylor, 63, according to Angela Atchley, her daughter. Ms Atchley said her mother was killed standing at the Mad Butcher’s checkout while doing her usual shopping.
Ms Taylor, who loved cooking and throwing small parties, had asked Ms Atchley’s son if he wanted to join her shopping on Friday. He didn’t, and now “he’s blaming himself,” Ms. Atchley said. “He said to me, ‘I could have protected her or something.’ I said, “Then we would have two funerals.” »
The injured included two law enforcement officers whose lives were not believed to be in danger, according to Arkansas State Police, as well as the suspect, Travis Eugene Posey, 44, of New Edinburg, a community located approximately 10 miles southeast of Fordyce.
Mr. Posey will be charged with three counts of capital murder, police said, noting that additional charges were pending. An inmate registry in Ouachita County, which borders Dallas County where the shooting took place, showed that Mr. Posey was being held there on charges of murder and attempted murder.
Authorities have not given any details about a possible motive for the shooting, which appears to have taken place both inside the store and in the parking lot. The suspect used a shotgun, according to a senior law enforcement official. It was unclear Saturday whether other weapons were used and whether any weapons were acquired illegally. It is also unclear whether the suspect had a connection to the victims.
But “he was calm,” Mr. Brazil said. “He was walking and shooting.”
Mr. Posey, known as Joey, comes from a family that has lived in the area for generations. He worked in the lumber industry, like his father, Travis Julian Posey, who was a Marine who fought in Vietnam and died in 2021. The suspect also worked in the trucking industry: a truck bearing his company name, Travis Posey Trucking, was still parked on his property Saturday.
At the Mad Butcher, two sheets of red paper were taped to the doors, with a message in capital letters: “TEMPORARILY CLOSED. PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR COMMUNITY.
“Unheard of in this small town,” said Ms. Langley, who stopped to take a photo of a wreath near the store that had been provided by her daughter.
Other residents were just as shaken Saturday. Some expressed relief that their loved ones had been spared.
Robin Roark, a pastor who is also candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives, said he received a text message Friday from his mother, who was parked outside a pharmacy in the same strip mall as the grocery store. She told him she thought there had been a shooting.
“I call my mom, and it rings and rings and rings, and no one answers,” Mr. Roark said Saturday morning. “I called three or four times before she picked up. All I heard was gunshots – a constant barrage of gunshots. I was like, “Mom, are you there? »
Mr. Roark’s mother finally picked up. She was lying on the floor of the car – and she was fine.
Mr Brazil said he knew he and his wife were lucky.
He said a doctor told him that even though he had shrapnel in his wound, he would be OK. “Thank God that’s all, I could have lost my eye,” he said, adding that he was grateful to have “the chance to play a little bit more with my grandchildren.”
Ms Taylor, one of the victims, had three children, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, Ms Atchley said. “She was such a wonderful woman,” she added. “She would do anything for her children. Her family was everything to her.
Mrs. Atchley remembers the last time she saw her mother. It was Thursday and Ms. Atchley, who lives in Camden, about 30 miles south of Fordyce, stopped at her mother’s house on the way to Little Rock to give her some cucumbers and tomatoes from her garden.
“I told him I loved him,” she said.
