Motive Sought in Slaying Outside Day Care

Detectives were seeking clues Sunday into what led a 22-year-old North Texas university student to gun down his psychological counselor's husband before killing himself outside a day care center.

The gunman confronted Steven McIntosh, 42, of Colleyville in front of the Country Day School of Arlington about 5:45 p.m. Friday and shot him several times before shooting himself in the head, according to an Arlington police statement. McIntosh had just emerged from the school with his 3-year-old daughter when school employees heard gunfire.

"The employees looked outside and saw the two men lying on the ground," Arlington police spokeswoman Tiara Ellis Richard told The Dallas Morning News for a story in Sunday's edition. "They got the little girl and brought her back inside and called 911."

The little girl was not injured.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office identified the suspected gunman as Antonio Garcia, a senior at the University of Texas at Arlington, where McIntosh's wife is a psychological counselor at the university.

McIntosh's wife recently withdrew as Garcia's counselor and referred him elsewhere, and there was no indication of any relationship between the two other than a professional one, according to the statement.

It was unclear whether McIntosh and Garcia had met before, but Richard said McIntosh knew of Garcia.

"Most people know the people who kill them," she told The Dallas Morning News. "There's some sort of relationship, but it's usually passionate, there's some emotional vested interest for both parties, and that doesn't seem to be the case in this one.

"It's unusual in the sense that you have someone who appears to have been targeting an individual or a family for reasons that aren't exactly clear. In his head, I'm sure it made sense," Richard said.

Garcia had transferred to UTA from the Dallas County Community College System in the fall of 2009 and had been expected to graduate this semester, UTA President James Spaniolo said in a prepared statement.

Garcia's neighbors described the student as a loner. "He was the only neighbor who would never say 'Hi'," student Ludmila Beloso said.

McIntosh had been a vice president and general manager of advertising customer services for the Dallas-based Belo Corp., owner of a chain of television stations that include WFAA-TV of Dallas-Fort Worth.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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