Georgia: Mother's death led to shootings
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COLUMBUS, GA. -- Armed with a three-year grudge and more guns than he could hold, a former substitute teacher stormed a west Georgia hospital looking to punish the nurse he blamed for his mother's death.
The nurse, another employee and a bystander are dead and the alleged shooter is being treated for a gunshot wound police inflicted.
Charles Johnston, 63, was expected to face murder and assault charges in Thursday's rampage at Doctors Hospital, Police Chief Ricky Boren said. Johnston was being treated at the Medical Center in Columbus, near the Alabama state line. He was in satisfactory condition Friday.
"Apparently it had been on his mind for a while," Boren said.
Johnston went to Doctors Hospital with a gun hidden in his waistband and other guns in his pants and jacket pockets, authorities said. He made his way to the fifth-floor intensive care unit, where his mother had been treated in 2004 before she died of natural causes.
Boren said Johnston was looking for a nurse he knew only as "Pete," and followed nurse Peter D. Wright into a hospital room after hearing Wright's name called out. Wright, 44, was shot in the chest and head after trying to leave the room, Boren said.
After shooting Wright and the administrative assistant inside the hospital, Johnston got into his car in the parking lot, Boren said. James David Baker, 76, pulled in to a spot facing Johnston, who shot him in the head as he got out of his car, the chief said. Johnston may have thought that Baker, 76, was a police officer trying to arrest him, Boren said.
Thelma Lutrella, 78, who was a neighbor of Johnston's mother, said Charles Johnston and his brother Carl returned to Columbus when their mother, Lillie Mae Love, became sick and disabled by diabetes.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
