Three dead in shooting at TDOT garage; two others injured
JACKSON — A man opened fire Tuesday at a Tennessee Department of Transportation maintenance garage, killing his estranged wife and two others, and wounding two more people, authorities said.
David Jordan, 40, of Jackson was arrested a short time later two miles from the garage and put up no resistance. He was followed while driving 40 mph by a police officer who pulled him over once he had backup.
Police gave no motive for the shooting.
Police said Jordan first walked through the open garage to the office where he shot and killed his 31-year-old wife Donna Renee Jordan, a department employee, at her desk at about 11:31 a.m. The Region Four Headquarters complex is open to the public and visitors can come and go freely.
He walked back outside and killed David Gordon, 41, of Humboldt, an employee of HCI Delivery Services who was dropping off a package, and Jerry Wayne Hopper, 61, a 28-year Forestry Department employee from Enville who was having work done on his state vehicle, police said. The garage is used for maintenance on state vehicles.
Gordon and Hopper both died after being transported to Jackson-Madison County General Hospital.
Two other men — Transportation Department employees Larry Taylor, 54, and James Goff, 53 — were shot and wounded, authorities said. Taylor and Goff received wounds that are not life-threatening and are being treated at a hospital, police said.
Police Chief Rick Staples said Jordan was armed with a SKS 7.62 mm assault rifle, a Mossberg 12-gauge pump shotgun, a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and a .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol.
Jordan used at least two of the weapons to shoot his estranged wife, Staples said.
TDOT officials said 49 people work in the garage, which is in a complex of one-story buildings surrounded only by a 6-foot-high chain-link fence with no security about a mile from Interstate 40. There are 295 employees working at the Region Four Headquarters, TDOT officials said.
“We are very, very fortunate that this incident wasn’t much worse,” Transportation Department spokeswoman Pamela Marshall said at a news conference.
TDOT officials said Mrs. Jordan had two children of her own and two stepchildren.
“Her co-workers say she was pleasure to work with, and she will be missed,” TDOT Commissioner Gerry Nicely said. “We are stunned and deeply saddened by this unspeakable tragedy.”
Nicely said TDOT is sending the state’s special trauma counseling unit to help its employees in Jackson.
State Rep. Johnny Shaw, who represents part of Jackson, led the Tennessee House in a prayer on the first day of the General Assembly.
“It is a very sad situation that a man would go to his job to shoot his ex-wife. I cannot envision them having a problem that great, that he needed to take her life,” Shaw said. “What’s even sadder, is that other victims were involved, and the families of those victims who had nothing whatsoever to do with this.”
Staples said Jordan will be charged at a minimum with three counts of homicide and two of attempted homicide. Jordan is being held at the Madison County Criminal Justice Complex.