The gunman who stormed a Florida yoga studio, killing two people and wounding five others before fatally shooting himself, had a history of groping women, police said on Saturday.
Scott Paul Beierle, 40, posed as a customer before unleashing a hail of bullets without warning, said Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo.
Beierle pistol-whipped another victim after walking into Hot Yoga at around 5:30 p.m. Friday, DeLeo said.
Leon County Sheriff Scott Paul Beierle.
Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, an internist and Florida State University professor, and Maura Binkley, 21, a student at the school, died at Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare hospital, officials said.
Two other victims were in stable condition, and three were released from the hospital on Saturday, said cops.
The motive for the shooting remains unclear, police said.
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Van Vessem, an FSU professor, also served as chief medical director for Capital Health Plan, the area’s leading health-maintenance organization.
Beierle was charged with battery in 2016 after he slapped and grabbed a woman’s buttocks at an apartment-complex pool, but the charges were later dismissed, court records show. Four years earlier, Beierle allegedly grabbed a woman’s rear end in an FSU dining hall, but claimed it was accidental, according to records.
Neighborhood resident Elle Welling said she saw at least three people loaded into ambulances as she was leaving a liquor store across the street.
“You don’t think about this in Tallahassee, and now you have to,” said Welling, 26.
The studio is part of a small Tallahassee shopping center. The plaza is home to popular restaurants, a jewelry store, a framing shop, a hair salon and other businesses.
Erskin Wesson, 64, said he was eating at a restaurant located under the yoga studio when he heard gunshots ring out.
“We just heard ‘pow, pow, pow, pow,’ ” Wesson said. “It sounded like a limb falling on a tin roof and rolling.”
Both Gov. Rick Scott and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, the Democratic nominee for governor, broke off from the campaign trail to return to Tallahassee. Scott and Gillum both visited gunshot victims, including one who had been shot nine times. Gillum said the two women he met “were in good spirits.”
Beierle claimed on LinkedIn to have graduated from SUNY Binghamton in 2002, going on to master’s degrees in urban and regional planning and public administration from FSU.
“To lose one of our students and one of our faculty members in this tragic and violent way is just devastating to the Florida State University family. We feel this loss profoundly and we send our deepest sympathies to Maura’s and Nancy’s loved ones while we pray for the recovery of those who were injured,” FSU President John Thrasher said in a statement.
Wire services contributed.
This report previously appeared at NYPost.com.
