ANTHEM, AZ — A man was seen shooting a woman in a car and later shooting himself in Anthem Wednesday morning.
Phoenix police say the incident happened near I-17 and Anthem Way around 8:15 a.m.
When officers arrived, they found a woman and a man who had both been shot.
Officials transported the woman to the hospital in critical condition. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
Witnesses told police they saw the man walk up to a woman inside a vehicle, shoot her, then walk a short distance away and shoot himself.
Several nearby businesses and a school were put on lockdown as a precaution. They have since reopened.
Loved ones tell ABC15, the victim, a mother of three, is still hospitalized days after being shot multiple times while sitting in her car.
The family asked us to keep her name private.
“Why her?” Jeff McCombs told ABC15.
McCombs is still in shock that his dear friend is in critical condition.
He’s known her family for more than a decade.
“Everybody’s devastated. She got shot five times. Twice in the arm. Twice in the chest, and once in the head. Four of them are still in her. They’re waiting for the swelling to go down before they know what they can do,” he said.
McCombs describes his friend as a hardworking business owner, loving wife, and mother to a daughter and two sons.
He says she was waiting in the car for her youngest son to get out of pediatric therapy when she was shot.
“She’ll put somebody else before herself. In this situation, that’s what she was doing. She was taking care of her kid and…just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said McCombs.
Speaking about the shooter, McCombs said, “We don’t know who he is. We’re kind of dumbfounded about it."
Now loved ones are holding on to hope she’ll one day make a full recovery.
McCombs took it upon himself to start a GoFundMe fundraiser for the victim’s medical expenses.
“I know they’re going to have ridiculous bills coming up so... I just… I don’t think they should have to worry about something like that,” he said.
He says she is strong and they are doing their best to be strong for her on her road to recovery.
“It’s not fair to have to deal with something that somebody else created for no reason. Like, they didn’t even know her.” McCombs said.
We asked Phoenix Police if there was a motive and if he had any relation to the victim.
Police identified the suspect as 38-year-old Eric Charles Blair.
Police tell us they are working to determine whether they knew each other, or if this was indeed a random shooting as family friends say.
