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that. We don't visit with nobody." "It looks like he set out to
do some real terrible things even as early as the weekend.
Whether he had it in mind to go out to GMAC at that time, we
don't know," the sheriff said.

At 10:45 a.m. Monday, he parked at the GMAC office and left a
9mm semiautomatic pistol locked in the trunk of his Buick. He
came in the door and shot a customer at the front counter --
Julia White Burgess, 42, of Keystone Heights -- and moved into
the large, open room as employees dived for cover under desks.
"He just started walking through the building and shooting,"
said McMillan.

Drew Woods, 38, shot where he sat at his desk, was the first to
fall there. Behind Woods, Cynthia Perry, 30, was getting up to
leave her desk when she was hit. Next to her, Barbara Duckwall
Holland, 45, was shot as she tried to duck under her own desk.
She screamed. He shot her again and she fell silent, the fourth
to die. Pough was silent too. No one remembered him saying a
word. For a few moments some of the office staff did not know
what was going on, employee Richard Langille said. "At first,
back where we were, from the noise off it, it sounded like a
copy machine or something had blown up."

When someone hollered "Get down!" they realized what was
happening and dived under desks to escape. There they were
trapped.

Pough turned to his right and shot Phyllis Griggs, 42, who was
directly in front of him. She escaped as he turned his attention
past her. "And then we realized the guy was pointing his gun
underneath people's desks and killing them one by one," said
Langille, who guessed he heard 50 shots. "I just saw the bottom
of the carpet and just prayed."

The rifle, poked under their desks, blasted away at Janice
David, 40, and Sharon L. Hall, 45. Both were killed. Jewel
Belote, 50, shot under her desk, was still alive at nightfall.
Lee Simonton, 33, was shot under his desk and died later. A
policeman's wife, Denise Highfill, 36, was killed under her
desk. Ron Echevarria, 49, also shot under a desk, survived.
David Hendrix, 25, the 13th person shot, was still alive Monday
night. So was Nancy Dill, 31.

Fred Bateh, owner of a sandwich shop across the street, said a
GMAC employee ran into his store about 10:45 a.m. and said
"Somebody's shooting people at close range. A lot of them are
dead."

Daniel Mulvaney, an AT&T worker, was outside on a break when he
heard the gunfire. "We saw people running from the building. One
had blood on his leg and another had blood all over his back,"
Mulvaney said.

A woman in the office was on the phone at the time to Nita King,
assistant deputy clerk of Marion County, who overheard the
action at her end of the line in Ocala. "I answered the phone
and didn't get an answer a couple of times," King said. "And she
says, 'Help! Help! Help! We're being robbed. Please help,' About
that time I could hear some gunshots in the background. She was
under her desk."

King yelled for someone to call the police. "I kept her on the
phone until the law agencies did get there," King said. "You
could hear the gunshots. I heard at least 8 or 10, I guess,
people screaming and carrying on. The girl was so upset, she
kept begging for help. It was just terrible."

When police arrived at the one-story office building made of
white stone, they found seven bodies.

Two more people died soon afterward, raising the death count to
nine. The rest, all reported in serious and critical condition,
were at University Medical Center and Baptist and St. Luke's
hospitals.

Police picked up 28 spent .30-caliber rifle cartridges and one
.38-caliber pistol casing -- presumably from the shot Pough
fired into his own head. Most of the shooting was done with
Pough's clip-fed rifle. "There's numerous magazines, plus
numerous rounds in his pockets. He was loaded for war," said
Deputy Mark Bozeman.

Investigators immediately wondered if Pough had anything to do
with the earlier rifle murders committed in Pough's own
neighborhood. Sheriff McMillan said their hunch was confirmed
late in the day when witnesses were shown Pough's picture and
identified him as the rifleman who killed Louis Carl Bacon, 39,
and Doretta Drake, 30, at 12:50 and 1 a.m. Sunday.

The death total matches the worst previous one-day killing in
Florida, a 1982 massacre at a Miami machine shop that left nine
dead and three wounded. The gunman, schoolteacher Carl Brown,
was getting away on a bicycle until a passing motorist caught up
and bumped him from behind, knocking him into a utility pole and
killing him.

James Edward Pough (10)

On the morning of June 18, 1990, James Edward Pough walked in a
GMC car loan office in Jacksonville, Florida and started
shooting. Police said he was distraught over GMC's repossession
of his red 1988 Pontiac. "Pop," as his neighbors called him,
started his rampage the night before by killing a prostitute and
her pimp. The next morning, at the GMC office, he randomly
killed eight and wounded five others. When he saw no one else
left alive he turned the gun on himself.

Here's a first-hand account from a reader of the Archives:

"The morning of June 18, 1990 started out as a normal one for
me. I was unemployed and looking for work. I had a job interview
that morning on the southside of Jacksonville, FL. I got
breakfast and headed towards Baymeadows Road. It was a pleasant
day, so pleasant I actually got lost. After backtracking and
finally asking an Electric Company crew for directions, I drove
toward my destination. I missed the driveway the first time I
passed the building I was to be at. The next building was the
GMAC Office. I turned in and circled through the parking lot. As
I passed through, I looked at my watch. I thought to myself, "Is
there enough time to drop off a resume here?" If I hadn't gotten
lost, there would have been. I had to go to my scheduled
appointment, but thought I would go back afterward. I never
dreamed that I wouldn't have the chance.

As I drove out of the GMAC parking lot an old, faded green
Pontiac 4-door was pulling in. A big black man was driving. As
we passed, he glared at me. It was the kind of look a wild
animal gives just before it attacks. I felt the hair on the back
of my neck stand up. I drove quickly out of the parking lot and
across the street to my appointment. I had a real bad feeling
about the man.

My interview went well and I left the building on my way to the
GMAC office across the street. It was a scene I will never
forget. The place was absolutely crawling with Police, Rescue,
Helicopter Ambulances, you name it. The press wasn't there yet.
I asked a bystander what was going on and was told of the
massacre in the GMAC office. I felt my knees get weak. I sat
down and tried to calm down. I would later find out just how
close I came to being gunned down in cold blood. We were all
detained while the emergency crews worked at the scene. We
watched as stretcher after stretcher was rolled out of the
building. 8 people would die that day.

I watched the news that night and they showed a picture of the
killer and his car. It was the man in the Pontiac, mass
murderer, James Edward Pough. Pough had already killed two
people and went into the GMAC office within minutes after I saw
him. I thank God to this day that I got lost that morning. I
would have been one of the first to be gunned down in the lobby
as Pough went on his rampage. He literally worked his way
through the office methodically killing people. After he got
done shooting the others, he turned a gun on himself and took
his own life. It would be Pough's last violent act. An act of a
madman."

Mayhem.net

http://murderpedia.org/male.P/p/pough-james-edward.htm
 

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