Spa Shooting Suspect Grew Up in Suburban Chicago

Radcliffe Franklin Haughton is accused of killing three and wounding four in Sunday's rampage

The man accused of killing three people and wounding four others Sunday at a day spa outside of Milwaukee has roots in suburban Chicago, his father confirmed.

Suspect Radcliffe Franklin Haughton, 45, grew up in Northbrook and Wheeling and attended Wheeling and Glenbrook South high schools. Police said Haughton walked into the Azana Salon and Spa in Brookfield, Wis., around 11 a.m. Sunday and opened fire. It's the second mass shooting in Wisconsin in just two-and-a-half months.

Haughton's estranged wife works at the spa, police said, but it's not clear if she is among the dead or injured. His wife filed for a restraining order against him two weeks ago after he was caught slashing her tires while she was at work, police said.

In a court hearing on Thursday, a judge granted the restraining order and told Haughton to surrender his gun. It's not clear whether he followed those orders or obtained a new gun before the shooting that sent the spa and nearby Brookfield Mall into a panic.

"We had seen about 10 people come running out of the back of the building with their hands up, screaming," one witness said.

"I saw a woman, probably in her 20s, holding a paper towel to her neck because she was bleeding," said witness Joe Brent.

The suspect's father said he has no idea why his son lashed out so violently.

"This is not the way we lived. This is not the way I raised my son up," Radcliffe Haughton Sr. told NBC Chicago from Florida. "I don't know what happened."

Haughton's former neighbors also said they're very surprised by the attacks.

"He's a nice kid, I mean nice guy who's laid back," Richard Foster said. "He was a car dealer, guy on the up-and-up, nothing like what happened." 

Police thought for a short time that Haughton had gotten away, but ultimately they found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a locked area of the salon.

Four women between the ages of 22 and 40 are being treated for gunshot wounds. The names have not yet been released of the victims.

In August, 40-year-old former Army sergeant Wade Michael Page entered a Sikh temple in Oak Creek armed with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun. Police said he killed five men and one woman and wounded another four people, including a police officer he shot multiple times. Page died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
 

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