Mother of shooting victim speaks out

MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. - Rhonda Grafton, mother of shooting victim Melonie Wood, wants to  thank the public for their prayers and support..

Melonie is recovering well, thanks to the young man who gave his life shielding her from additional bullets, and our prayers go out to his family.

Despite the recent accidental death of her grandson as well as this tragic shooting, Rhonda and her family has felt God's presence uplifting them throughout this ordeal.

(Information provided by Hubert Tate)

Names released:

The names of four victims of a deadly shooting have been released.

Fairhope Police say James Anthony Tucker, 20, Jesse J. Warrick, Jr., 70, and Louise Lane Warrick, 67, were shot and killed. These three victims lived at the home where the shooting happened.

Officials say the fourth victim was Rebecca Melonie Wood, 34. She was wounded in the shooting, and is in stable condition. The name of the hospital she was taken to has not been released.

Melonie was the shooting suspect's ex-wife. Tucker was Melonie's boyfriend. Jesse and Louise Warrick were Tucker's grandparents.

What Happened:

By 4:30 Sunday afternoon, eastbound I-10 was blocked off by police and sheriff deputies. The suspect in a brutal murder in Fairhope Saturday night was dead in his SUV in the median.

Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran said the suspect was killed by one of his deputies.

"This individual fired shots from his vehicle back at the marked unit. The deputies trying to stop this individual with blue lights. The deputies were in a position where they then returned fire as a result of the returned fire this individual was struck and the vehicle ran off the road. He later was pronounced dead on the scene," Cochran said.

Sheriff Cochran said deputies spotted the suspect 37-year-old William Wood II in area of south DIP.

Police had been searching for Wood since the deadly shooting in Fairhope Saturday night.

Police said four people were shot with a high powered rifle in a home in the 10,000 Block of Highway 98. Three of the victims were dead on the scene. The fourth victim, a woman, was flown by helicopter to a hospital.

Neighbors said the shooting was the result of a domestic dispute between one of the victims and her estranged husband, Wood.

Wood and one of the victims were the parents of 4-year-old Austin Wood, who was killed when he was hit by a car on the highway last month.

"We can't speak to what kind of revenge or motivation that he had, but we do, and are capable of acknowledging that he did have a small child who was killed in an accident," Cochran said.

Wood had recently been released from prison.

The sheriff and District Attorney John Tyson Junior says the shooting of Wood was justified, and brought a dangerous situation to an end.

"The information that's available to me suggests that he was on the run, and he wasn't going to be arrested again. As it turned out he got his wish," Tyson said.

Police have not released the names of the Fairhope shooting victims.