2 bodies recovered in burned medical facility

Associated Press

DETROIT

A man identified by employees as a former maintenance worker opened fire Tuesday inside a Detroit medical facility, sending workers and visitors screaming and rushing for the doors just moments before the building erupted in flames.

Crews digging through the gutted Park Medical Centers building hours after the fire recovered the remains of a man and a woman, Detroit police said Tuesday night in a release.

Authorities did not release the identities of the dead, pending autopsies, but police had been searching for 35-year-old medical assistant Sharita Williams and the fired maintenance worker, who relatives said was her ex-boyfriend.

Williams’ mother, Antha Williams-Hill, told The Associated Press that one of her daughter’s co-workers told her that the man threatened her daughter inside.

“He said, ‘You think I’m playing with you?’” Williams-Hill said. “He told the other girl, ‘I think you better get out of here.’ The girl left and said she then heard two shots.”

Last week, Williams was granted a personal- protection order against the man, according to Wayne County Court records.

Williams-Hill said two days earlier, someone had emailed her sexually explicit photos of her daughter that also were posted on Facebook. The text accompanying the photos read: “How do you like Sharita’s new boyfriend?” her mother said.

Dr. Stuart Kirschenbaum, a podiatrist who operates his practice in the building, said he heard a security guard yell that the gunman “had taken Sharita and is shooting at other people in the building.”