UPDATE:

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Four Clay County residents are dead after a violent attack that began Tuesday morning around 9:40 a.m. when Murray Leon Lancaster, 40, of Green Cove Springs abducted his estranged girlfriend at gunpoint from a hair salon and forced her to go with him.

From the Keeping it Classy Hair and Nail Salon at 805 Orange Ave., Lancaster drove Valorie Shea Short, 30, to the entrance of Magnolia Point West off County Road 315 where they met her father, Welland Robert “Buddy” Short, 55, on Medinah Avenue. Police arrived moments later to find the bodies of both Valerie Short and her father.From there, he drove to the Rosemary Hill Landfill where he shot his ex-wife, Erica Green Lancaster.

From there, about 300 law enforcement officers worked together to find Lancaster, including Clay County Sheriff’s Department, the Green Cove Springs Police Department, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies. Clay County School officials placed all Green Cove Springs area schools on lock down, including Clay High, Charles E. Bennett Elementary, Bannerman Learning Center and Green Cove Springs Jr. High.

CCSO investigators believe Lancaster’s shooting spree, in which he later killed himself, is believed to be a reaction to an arrest surrounding an alleged domestic violence charge. CCSO arrested Lancaster on March 15 at 433 Melrose Ave. after getting into a drunken fight with Buddy Short and another man who tried to break up the fight.

According to the police report, Lancaster shouted curse words and threatened officers with a balled fist while police attempted to de-escalate the situation that ended in his arrest for two misdemeanor charges – one for dating simple battery and one for resisting an officer.

Police said the argument began when Valorie Short took Lancaster’s keys away from him to prevent him from driving after a day of binge drinking. She told police that “when she wouldn’t give the keys back, he grabbed her wrist and shoved her aggressively against the basketball hoop pole.”

After the March fracas, a judge issued a no contact order as a condition of pre-trial release on the battery charge. The order prohibited Lancaster from coming within 500 feet of Valorie Short, as well as prohibited any form of personal, electronic or second party contact with her. He was also ordered to not go within 500 feet of 431 Melrose Ave. except to collect his belongings with police supervision, according to the condition of pre-trial release document.

Tuesday’s search ended after CCSO SWAT members and officers from CCSO and GCSPD located the suspect’s truck on the Lancaster family property in the 1700 block of Idlewild Avenue/State Road 16 and conducted a search of all buildings on the grounds. Police found Lancaster inside a camper parked inside a barn with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A handgun was recovered next to his body. He is the son of former Orange Park High teacher and former Board of County Commissioners member Larry Lancaster, as well as the nephew of former Clay County Sheriff Scott Lancaster.

“He was seen there going into a small mobile home on the property,” Beseler said. “We had SWAT teams in place to collapse the perimeter at that location to try and determine if the suspect was still at the scene.”

In the aftermath of the shooting, CCSO and GCSPD are working with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to try and capture a timeline of events that led to the shootings, according to CCSO Public Information Officer Mary Justino.

For example, police know that Lancaster went to Charles E. Bennett Elementary School on May 2 but they are not certain whether that happened before he abducted Valorie Short or after the first two shootings.

“We do think he went by the school. It’s just a matter of confirming did he do that prior to committing the incident or sometime after,” Justino said.

Justino said Lancaster was scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday for the March battery charge and was possibly unsure of the outcome.

“As far as the timing of things, there isn’t really anything else that has occurred since that March arrest other than that court appearance was scheduled for yesterday,” she said.

Police, however, do not have any information explaining Lancaster’s motive in shooting his ex-wife, Erica Green Lancaster.