Police: Suspect sought suppressor
Austin police say Charles Curry killed a man, injured 2 women.
More details emerged Friday in court documents about how murder suspect Charles Curry spent Wednesday afternoon before a shooting rampage in South Austin that injured two women.
Austin police investigating the case retraced the steps they think the 29-year-old former political staffer tookbeforethe shootings, starting at a South Austin gun range, where they said Curry had been turned down from buying a gun suppressor moments before he started firing a weapon into random vehicles.
When Curry visited Range at Austin around 2 p.m. Wednes-
day, he asked to buy a gun suppressor, according to an arrest affidavit. However, the clerk told police, Curry was “acting crazy.”
The store’s manager told the American-Statesman that staffers had explained to Curry that he could not buy a suppressor without submitting forms to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as mandated by law.
She told the Statesman that Curry started asking questions that did not seem normal, including ones about real-life scenarios, and they told him to leave.
As Curry was pulling out of the shooting range in a white Chevy Tahoe, he cut off a 33-year-old woman who was driving north on the Interstate 35 frontage road with three kids in her car, according to authorities and court documents. Investigators have obtained from the shooting range surveillance video that shows Curry’s SUV pulling in front of the woman, the affidavit said.
The woman told police that as she switched lanes to get around the SUV, two bullets hit the car, including one that grazed her forehead.
She was hospitalized with serious injuries that are not expected to be life-threatening, according to Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services medics.
In a span of about 30 minutes that afternoon, police received more calls about shootings happening throughout South Austin involving a similar white SUV, including calls from the 5300 block of Ponciana Drive, the Post South Lamar apartments and the 4000 block of South Lamar Boulevard, in which a 25-yearold woman was injured by shattered glass when a bullet came through her vehicle’s window.
The next call did not come until around 5 p.m., when police got a report of a gunshot and a suspicious person seen getting into a boat on Lake Travis with a rifle, court documents said.
Travis County sheriff’s deputies responded to the 6300 block of Bob Wentz Park Road and found a white boat with the words “Good Legislation” printed on the side seated on a metal trailer, the affidavit said.
Authorities traced the license plate on the boat to Curry, who was nowhere to be found, the document said.
The search for Curry ended at his residence at the Post South Lamar apartments, where police had been investigating the shooting death of 32-year-old Christian Meroney on Monday.
Police said when they arrived they saw a shirtless man they recognized as Curry trying to get into the side door of the complex. But management had deactivated Curry’s keys, according to court documents.
Officers took him into custody and later found his Chevy Tahoe parked nearby with a black rifle magazine inside, the affidavit said.
Curry was booked into the Travis County Jail on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Police late Friday also charged Curry with murder in the shooting death of Meroney on Monday at Post South Lamar, where neighbors say the two men lived down the hall from each other. Authorities say a weapon found in Curry’s vehicle has been tied to Meroney’s death and the vehicle shootings.
Police have not released any additional information about what led up to Mon- day’s shooting. Meroney’s friends said they had never heard of Curry and did not think the two knew each other.
On Friday, residents at Post South Lamar were still in shock. A woman who lives next door to Curry and did not want to be named out of fear of retaliation called him “creepy.”
She said she and Curry had lived in the complex about a year and she would often see him lingering in the hallway or with his door cracked open playing music.
He had a girlfriend for a time, she said, but she had not seen her in a while.
She said he was quiet and only exchanged pleasantries.
“He just seemed a little bit off,” she said. “I didn’t get good vibes from him.”
Curry, who had a lengthy career working in Texas politics, was described by employers as spotty and showing poor performance.
He remained in jail Friday with bail set at $250,000, records showed.