Man with history of groping kills two women in yoga class
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A man who has been repeatedly accused of groping women walked into a yoga class and opened fire Friday night, shooting six people and killing two of them despite an attempt to fight him off.
Police said the shooting suspect, Scott Paul Beierle, 40, killed himself minutes before they arrived at the Hot Yoga studio, which sits above a row of restaurants at a northern Tallahassee shopping centre.
“In my public service career, I have had to be on some bad scenes. This is the worst,” City Commissioner Scott Maddox wrote after viewing the attack’s aftermath.
“Please pray.”
About a dozen people were inside Hot Yoga when a man with a black bag walked in around 5:30 p.m., the Tallahassee Democrat reported. The studio had advertised a Pilates certification class for the weekend.
Among the students were 21-year-old Maura Binkley and 61-year-old Nancy Van Vessem — respectively a student and a faculty member at Florida State University, which would later mourn them both.
Police were still investigating a motive behind the shooting late Saturday.
Beierle had been arrested twice in the past six years by the university’s police, according to criminal records. The first time was in 2012, when two women accused him of grabbing their buttocks on campus, the Democrat reported.
He was detained again two years later for trespassing in a dining hall.
About a month after the 2014 arrest, BuzzFeed News reported, Beierle posted a series of YouTube videos about his hatred of women under the name “Scott Carnifex.” The videos have been taken down.
Police said the first officers arrived about three minutes after the 911 call, at 5:40 p.m. Seven people had been shot inside the studio, including Beierle, who appeared to have killed himself.
Four of the victims were expected to survive, including one whom the Democrat reported had been shot nine times.
Binkley and Van Vessem died of their wounds.