Virginia shooting: Suspect arrested for killing three women and wounding others in attack

A man is in custody after killing three women and injuring two others in a mass shooting in Virginia.

Police arrested 19-year-old Ziontay Palmer hours after he allegedly gunned down the women and fled the scene in the city of Norfolk.

Detra Brown, 42, Nicole Lovewine, 45, and Sara Costine, 44, have now been identified by authorities as the women who were pronounced dead at the scene.

Two other women, aged 39 and 19, were taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds and are expected to recover.

One of the women has now been released from hospital, according to Norfolk mayor Kenny Alexander.

Investigators say that the suspect shot one woman during a domestic dispute, then shot the other four as they tried to help the first victim.

“Nicole was a sweet girl,” a neighbour, who did not want to be named, told WAVY-TV,

“Nicole would come and go to work. When she’d get off work she’d come straight in to the house. She never bothered nobody. When you see Nicole, you saw Dee (Detra); they were always together, wherever they went. When they left out in the morning to go to work they were together when they came home from work They were together.”

Norfolk Police Chief Larry Boone branded the suspect a “coward” in the immediate wake of the shooting.

“This has to stop. We need to start speaking up because this, I’ve never seen this in my 30-year career: five women shot,” he said.

“This nonsense has to stop and this idea that everybody can be saved, that’s gone by the way of the dodo bird.”

Montezuma Pride, the cousin of one of the victims, described her as a “strong, kind woman” to WTKR.