Three people were killed yesterday in two shootings in office buildings in the Birmingham, Alabama suburb of Pelham, police said.
The suspect, a 34-year-old white male, was captured after a high speed chase and a brief scuffle, Pelham police chief Mr Alan Wade said.
The gunman walked into Ferguson Enterprises early yesterday morning and shot his boss and two other people, then drove to his former workplace, Post Air Gas, and shot two others, Mr Wade said.
"Three victims were pronounced dead on the scene," he said. Police recovered a handgun from the front seat of the suspect's vehicle.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the gunman who killed his wife and two children before shooting nine people to death at two Atlanta brokerages last week may have lost as much as $450,000 on Internet stock trading.
Mark Barton, a 44-year-old day trader, bludgeoned his family to death at their apartment. He then went on a shooting rampage at two brokerages where he did business, killing nine people and injuring 13.
The Atlanta Constitution said Barton's trading losses may have totalled $450,000, attributing its figures to family members and police.
Barton's total losses could not be verified because the information is not public, the newspaper said. Reuters reported last week he had lost $105,000 since May at Momentum Securities Inc, and the Wall Street Journal, quoting unnamed sources, said he lost $400,000 at All-Tech Investment Group before his trading rights were suspended.
Ms Kelly Argo, sister of his wife, Leigh Ann, said Barton may have traded with money from his children's trust account.
The two children were from his first marriage to Debra Spivey Barton, who died in 1993, and they received $150,000 in insurance proceeds. She was stabbed to death along with her mother at an Alabama camp site in 1993.
Barton was the chief suspect in those killings, but was never charged and received $300,000 in a settlement on an insurance policy he had taken on her.
The Atlanta newspaper said several of the traders killed or injured had lent Barton money.
Atlanta police spokesman Mr John Quigley said Barton shot his victims at close range, rather than spraying the rooms with bullets. But he could not say how much Barton owed his colleagues or whether he had targeted specific victims.
In March Barton told Kelly Argo's husband, Gary, he had tapped his children's trust fund and was facing a repayment deadline. He said if he missed the deadline, he might go to jail. Later he told him he had met the repayment deadline.
But Barton's trading rights were suspended by New Jersey-based All-Tech Investment Group and he switched to Houston-based Momentum Securities Inc. Those companies' offices were the scenes of Barton's bloody rampage.
In addition to the nine people killed at the two brokerages, Barton had earlier bludgeoned his wife and two children, Matthew (11) and Mychelle (7) to death with a hammer, leaving behind a confession.