DAVENPORT, Fla. — An electrician who got in an angry dispute with a supervisor attacked his colleagues at the Florida home they shared on a temporary work project, killing two Saturday and injuring a third who wasn’t expected to survive, a sheriff said. That third victim died at a Florida hospital.
Electrician Shaun Runyon and his coworkers were living in Davenport while they worked temporarily at a supermarket for a Pennsylvania electric company. The 39-year-old got into the argument with his supervisor Friday, punching the man and fleeing the job site, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said during a news conference.
Runyon returned to the home where he and seven coworkers and their families were living and began attacking them with a knife and baseball bat, beating one man to death while he slept, Judd said.
A second victim was found dead on the front porch and a third victim was beaten so badly he was hospitalized in extremely critical condition and was “not expected to survive,” the sheriff said.
Runyon chased a fourth victim into the street and struck him with the bat. Another man escaped unharmed with his wife and 7-year-old daughter, Judd said.
Davenport is a community about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southwest of Orlando in central Florida.
Runyon fled the home, leaving a bloody trail that eventually went cold, prompting a large-scale manhunt involving dozens of deputies, K-9 units, drones and a helicopter, authorities said.
He turned up hours later at the home of a Lake Wales couple, wearing bloody clothes and telling them he’d been raped, according to the sheriff. Judd said the man discarded his bloody clothes at the home as they urged him to go to the hospital where he was later taken into custody.
The sheriff said charges will be forthcoming against Runyon, who was not injured. The identities of the victims were not immediately released.
Runyon also has a violent criminal history, the sheriff said, including a violent arrest dealing with strangulation in Pennsylvania. No other details were given.
“He knew all of these victims. We have no idea what outraged him so bad that more than 24 hours later he would come back and make an attempt to kill every one of them,” Judd said.
Runyon is also charged in Northampton County in eastern Pennsylvania with a felony count of strangulation -- applying pressure to the throat -- on May 21 along with misdemeanor counts of child endangerment, terroristic threat, reckless endangerment and other charges. He was scheduled for formal arraignment and a pretrial conference Oct. 14.
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