A gunman wearing body armor shot and killed three adults and a baby, and wounded an 11-year-old girl after returning to the same house within nine hours.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said his office first received a call at around 7:30 Saturday night of a suspicious car parked on the side of the road north of Lakeland, Florida.
By the time officials arrived on the scene six minutes later, the car and the suspect were no longer there, but a woman told a deputy who responded to the call, the driver told her: 'God sent me here to speak to one of your daughters.'
Officials spent the next 20 minutes scouring the area for the vehicle, Judd said, but did not find him.
About nine hours later, though, at around 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, a lieutenant responding to another call about two minutes away heard two volleys of automatic gunfire coming from the area, and notified deputies.
Within a few seconds, Judd said, the sheriff's office started to also get some phone calls about an active shooter.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd announced on Sunday that three adults and a baby were fatally shot in two homes north of Lakeland, Florida early in the morning
He said they now have a suspect in custody but are still investigating the incident
When sheriff's deputies and officials from the Lakeland Police Department arrived on the scene, they saw a truck on fire and heard a popping noise coming from the front yard of the house they responded to the night before.
They then noticed a man outfitted in body armor who, Judd said, 'looked like he was ready to engage us all in an active shooter situation, but we didn't see a firearm,' and he went back inside the house.
Judd noted that it is not unusual to see someone wearing camouflage in the highly-rural area, and they 'didn't know who he was.'
But soon, they heard another round of gunshots, a woman scream and a baby whimper.
A lieutenant tried to get into the front of the house, Judd said, but it was barricaded. He then made his way to the back of the house, gained entrance and a gun fight ensued. No
