SEBRING, Fla. – An employee in a break room inside the Sebring bank where a gunman shot and killed five women execution-style was able to safely escape and call authorities, sheriff's officials said Thursday.
No details about the employee will be released, according to the Highlands County Sheriff's Office.
"There was another bank employee in the building at the time the incident began," deputies said. "The employee was in a back break room and heard the shots and ran out a back door and contacted law enforcement."
Zephen Xaver, 21, was arrested in the shooting, which was reported Wednesday at the SunTrust bank in Sebring, about 85 miles south of Orlando. He faces five counts of premediated murder.
There's no known motive in the massacre, according to Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund. The victims included four bank employees and a customer. Hoglund said the shooter had no apparent connection to the women or the bank.
"He overtook the bank by force," Hoglund said. "He then shot everyone in the bank, and he called 911, telling dispatchers that he'd killed everyone in the bank."
The customer who was killed was identified as Cynthia Watson, 65. Bank employees Ana Piñon-Williams, 38, and Marisol Lopez, 55 were also identified by law enforcement a day after the shooting.
Hoglund said the community is mourning the loss of "our sisters, our mothers, our daughters and our co-workers."
A woman identifying herself as the ex-girlfriend of the suspect in the mass shooting said he often thought about hurting people and has long been fascinated with death and guns.
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