A man shot two of his relatives and a fast food worker dead before shooting himself on Thursday in rural Georgia, local authorities said.
The shooter killed his mother and grandmother at two neighbouring homes and killed a woman at a McDonald’s restaurant in Moultrie, south Georgia.
According to local Colquitt County Coroner C Verlyn Brock, the gunman then shot himself.
Mr Brock did not provide the identities of the shooter or the victims.
He said he did not know whether the gunman and the McDonald’s worker knew each other.
In a statement, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that there had been “multiple fatalities" at different crime scenes in the area.
As the state’s leading law enforcement agency, the GBI said the Moultrie Police Department requested its assistance, as is typical in major crimes in Georgia.
“We are working to learn more information and track down some additional witnesses,” said investigating officer Jamy Steinberg.
Sabrina Holweger, who works at an adjoining optometrist’s office, said she and a coworker arrived at work before 8am local time to find police swarming the McDonald’s and a woman’s body lying in a doorway of the restaurant.
“It was really just scary not knowing if they had shot themselves," Holweger said.
She said police blocked off a main street that runs in front of the McDonald’s.
It came hours after police arrested a man accused of opening fire inside the waiting room of an Atlanta medical practice on Wednesday, killing one woman and wounding four in a separate incident.
Workers and others in the city’s busy commercial district took shelter for hours during the manhunt for the shooter.
Moultrie is about 200 miles south from Atlanta.
