JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The 22-year-old man who shot and killed two women in the San Marco area last month took his own life the next day with the same gun, detectives with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said in a news conference Wednesday.
Investigators have identified Ty Christopher Head (pictured below) as the shooter who killed Paige Pringle, 28, and Tara Baker, 53, early in the morning on Aug. 9.
JSO Chief of Investigations Alan Parker said investigators do not definitively know why Head shot the women, but noted the investigation continues.
“When Head took his own life, he blocked the only avenue for investigators to conclusively answer this question,” Parker said.
After investigators identified Head as the shooter, they learned he had shot and killed himself outside Nashville the day after the double murder. Parker said that means the case is cleared.
“While we cannot provide the deceased victims’ family members with justice through the court system, it is our solemn hope that by providing them with some factual answers concerning these murders, we can impart to them some sense of peace,” Parker said.
Parker said Head had no criminal record but had a history of substance abuse and had been in a Jacksonville Beach halfway house for addiction recovery not long before the shooting.
Parker indicated that Head was living out of his car at the time of the shooting. He said Head has no documented history of mental illness. He was originally from Ocala, according to an obituary that did not mention his cause of death or connection to the case.
Pringle’s parents were at Wednesday’s news conference and were acknowledged by both Parker and Sheriff T.K. Waters.
“Our hearts are with you and your family,” Waters said. They’ve requested privacy as they grieve. After the shooting, Baker’s fiancée told News4JAX he missed her deeply, saying she was just heading home when she was killed. He wasn’t reached for comment on Wednesday.
Parker said he hopes, despite not being able to provide the families justice, that knowing who killed their loved ones provides some sort of peace.
“Our community continues to send them support as they navigate their grief,” Parker said. “We cannot ever find sense in a senseless act.”
The shooting
Investigators said Pringle, who was presumably headed home after stopping by her workplace at Dos Gatos bar downtown, was driving south down Hendricks Avenue when she was forced to stop her white SUV because of a passing train around 1:40 a.m. Aug. 9.
Pringle was a beloved employee at the popular Dos Gatos bar in downtown Jacksonville, which is only about 2 miles from the train tracks.
Related: 911 callers describe the scene after two women were killed in San Marco | Dos Gatos employee identified as one of 2 women killed in shooting near San Marco train
Surveillance video showed Head’s gray Volkswagen Passat driving behind Pringle down Hendricks Avenue just before the shooting.
“There was a car following her car very closely,” said Stephanie Vazquez, an assistant manager at Fifi’s Fine Resale nearby. She turned over video to police after discovering the store’s cameras caught the vehicles passing by.
“My deepest condolences go out to the family that you don’t want ever want to hear something like that happening to someone in your family,” she said. “So we’re all here for them. We’re just grateful that we were able to contribute even just a little bit.”
For reasons investigators do not know, Head got out of his car and shot Pringle and Baker, who was standing next to her bicycle near the train tracks, also waiting for it to pass.
The shooting caused Pringle’s SUV to coast forward, striking the passing train.
Both women died from their injuries. They did not know each other.
The investigation
Parker said the only lead investigators had at first was the color, make and model of the car that had been following Pringle.
Crime scene detectives also recovered many spent 9mm casings at the scene.
Parker wouldn’t elaborate on the exact technology but said the FBI and ATF aided investigators with identifying Head as the possible shooter.
“Investigators quickly learned that Head owned a gray Volkswagen Passat, which matched the description of the suspect vehicle,” Parker said. “Additionally, they learned that Head had shot and killed himself outside of Nashville, Tennessee, the day after the double murder.”
Parker said it’s unclear why Head traveled to Nashville after the shootings, but investigators in Wilson County, Tennessee, helped JSO detectives confirm that Head had taken his own life with a 9mm handgun near his gray Passat. The agencies connected bullet casings found at the scene of the murder with Head’s gun using a national ballistics information database called NIBIN.
“ATF forensics just confirmed within the last hour that the 9mm handgun that Head used for his suicide is, in fact, the weapon that took the lives of Tara Baker and Paige Pringle,” Parker said.
The Jacksonville Fraternal Order of Police Foundation donated an additional $10,000 toward the First Coast Crime Stoppers’ $3,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Union president Randy Reaves told News4JAX the money will go back to the fund, which the union will use to help with another unsolved murder if needed.
Anyone with additional information can call the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at 904-630-0500 or First Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS.