Howard County Police identified Darion Marcus Aguilar, a 19-year-old who had recently graduated from Montgomery County's James Hubert Blake High School, as the man who entered a store at the Mall in Columbia and fatally shot two employees and then killed himself.
Surveillance video showed he had arrived at the mall by cab at 10:15 am with a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, a large amount of ammunition and a bag in which they found two crude devices made of "flash powder and household items."
Aguilar walked downstairs before he came back to the second floor. Police report shots fired about an hour after he arrived
Police have not determined whether Aguilar knew the two victims, Brianna Benlolo, 21, of College Park and Tyler Johnson, 25, of Mount Airy, who were killed shortly after 11:15 am in the skate shop Zumiez. The victims were coworkers.
"We have not been able to verify any type of relationship between him and our victims," Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon said, adding that police are still actively looking for connections and a motive. Aguilar lived near victim, Benlolo, but McMahon didn't know if they knew each other.
Aguilar, who lived with his mother in a white frame house in College Park, kept a journal that police said "expressed general unhappiness" with his life. Aguilar's mother showed the journal to Prince George's County police on Saturday at 5 p.m. after she had called them to report her son missing. She had been unable to find her son at the Dunkin' Donuts where he worked.
A Prince George's police officer read a portion of the journal that "made him concerned for the missing person's safety." He began looking for Aguilar and tracked his phone to the Mall at Columbia.
The Mall at Columbia will open on Monday, two days after violence disrupted the Saturday morning bustle of shopping that has become a gathering place for many in the planned suburban community.
On Sunday, the family of victim Tyler Johnson, issued a statement that said: "We have lost a kind, positive son who reached out to help others in need, and he made a difference. Our prayers are with him and the other victims and all the people who have been touched by this violence."
Benlolo, according to her Facebook page, was an assistant manager at the store and grew up in Florida and Colorado before moving to Maryland in 2010. Johnson's Facebook page indicated he had worked at the store since November. Both have family in Mount Airy. Acquaintances confirmed their identities through photos posted on their Facebook profiles.
Five people, including a woman who was shot in the foot on the first floor, were treated at Howard County General Hospital and released. The other four were not shot but injured during the chaos after the shots rang out.
McMahon said police have seen nothing in Aguilar's background that hinted at violence. According to Maryland electronic court records, he did not have a criminal record.
"We want to find out why this occurred," McMahon said. Police are planning to reinterview the victims' families to again search for connections between Aguilar and Benlolo and Johnson but he said investigators also want to respect their grieving process.
No one answered the door at the well maintained, old white frame house in College Park where Aguilar lived, although there was a car in the driveway and lights on inside.
Neighbors said they did not know the family who is believed to be renting the house, except to see them coming and going occasionally. "I don't think they have been there long," said Augusta Bailey, a neighbor who has lived in her house for two decades.
Baltimore Sun Media Group reporters Justin Fenton, Justin George, Eduardo A. Encina, Alison Knezevich, Kevin Rector, Erin Cox and Luke Lavoie contributed to this article.
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