Police say Florida bank attack was a random act

SEBRING, Fla. — Investigators have found no obvious reason why a man accused of fatally shooting five women picked a small-town bank in Florida as the place to carry out his attack, authorities said Thursday.

Zephen Xaver’s attack did not appear to be part of a robbery, and he had no apparent connection to the SunTrust branch or the four employees and one customer who were killed, police said.

There was also no evidence that Wednesday’s attack was planned, although a former girlfriend said Xaver often talked of killing people.

“We believe it was a random act,” Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund said Thursday at a news conference. “Aside from perhaps driving by and seeing it was a bank, we have no known evidence that he targeted this bank for any particular reason.”

That randomness hit Carol Davis, who manages the hair salon and spa next door, hard. If the gunman had driven 10 seconds farther, just one more driveway, the victims would have been her, her staff and her customers.

“He could have come here. He could have gone anywhere. It could happen anywhere,” she said.

Xaver, 21, was charged Thursday with five counts of premeditated murder. Just months ago, he moved from northern Indiana to Sebring, about 80 miles southeast of Tampa. He had recently quit his job as a prison guard trainee.

From police and witness accounts, he entered the bank about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday when the five women were alone. The bank sits apart along U.S. 27, a busy four-lane highway that connects south and central Florida, passing mostly through farms and small towns like Sebring, a tourist and retirement city of 10,000 known internationally for an annual endurance auto race that draws some of the world’s top drivers.