Louisville Metro police have identified the man they suspect shot a gas-station clerk during a robbery early Monday morning, then shot himself in a Lyndon apartment complex.
Deputy Jefferson County coroner Sam Weakley said Rickey J. Watson, 53, died of a gunshot wound as the result of an apparent suicide, although an autopsy will be performed Tuesday.
Watson's body was found in Millgate Apartments, 1704 Millgate Road, after police knocked on his door around 8 a.m. Monday while searching for the man who had shot a clerk hours earlier at the Circle K on LaGrange Road
Detectives heard a gunshot from inside the apartment and called for the SWAT team to come to the scene around 9 a.m., said Dwight Mitchell, a spokesman for Louisville Metro Police.
About 11:15 a.m., SWAT officers entered the apartment and found a man dead inside.
No officers fired their weapons during the incident, Mitchell said.
Police believe Watson was the man who committed the robbery and shooting earlier Monday at the Circle K, but investigators were still working on the case to confirm that, Mitchell said.
The SWAT callout stemmed from a 2:30 a.m. shooting at the Circle K store at 9901 LaGrange Road, where a clerk was found by police with a gunshot wound after an apparent robbery attempt, Mitchell said. The clerk apparently called 911 to report the shooting, he said.
The clerk, whose name has not been released, remains in critical condition at University Hospital, he said. Matt Nowlin, a nearby resident, said he knew of the clerk, but knew him only by his first name, Chris.
Nowlin's mother and her fiancé, who works at the Circle K where the robbery happened, live in the same building where the suspect was holed up, he said. Nowlin said the suspect was a frequent customer of the store, according to his mother's fiance.
Two units near the victim's apartment were evacuated as SWAT members moved to secure the outside of the building, Mitchell said. Snipers could also be seen on the roof of a one-story house on Wickham Way, a street behind the suspect's apartment building.
Because of the SWAT situation, nearby Bowen Elementary school was temporarily placed on a higher level of security, with access to the building controlled and no movement allowed outside the building, said Lauren Roberts, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Public Schools.
An alert was later sent to parents advising that the SWAT situation ended and everything was fine at the school.
Nellie and Ed Hornberger stood outside of their apartment building at the corner of Millgate and LaGrange Road just after 9 a.m. Nellie Hornberger said a plain-clothes detective knocked on her door about 7:30 a.m., showed her a photo of the Circle K robbery suspect and asked if she had seen the man.
"I couldn't believe this was happening in my front yard," she said after SWAT arrived.