JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A man suspected of shooting his ex-girlfriend outside Crowley Maritime early Friday has shot and killed himself in a Northside home surrounded by police, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
Floacia Bell Brookins, 46 -- a longtime employee of Crowley -- was shot as she arrived for work at the Talleyrand facility just after 6 a.m.
Brookins was shot once in the neck and once in the back. She was in critical condition at Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center.
Within three hours, the SWAT team was called to a home in the 11000 block of Oak Lawn Road, where 50-year-old James Lawson Williams III refused to come out.
Early Friday afternoon, after police stopped hearing responses from inside the home, officers entered and found Williams dead of a gunshot wound.
Williams once dated Brookins. When the relationship soured, Williams would not leave her alone, her brother told Channel 4's Adam Landau.
"They had a lot of domestic problems," Joel Bell said. "He stalked her for, like, a month. My brother-in-law was bringing her back and forth to work. I guess he finally caught her by herself and did what he did."
On July 4, Williams was arrested for pointing a gun at Brookins.
Brookins' family members said the woman feared for her life and nothing he did, including getting a restraining order, could keep Williams away.
"He didn't have to do this. There were other ways. He didn't have to do this to her. She's a hardworking young lady, and she has been for a long time. He didn't have to do this to her," said Brookins' aunt, Parthenia Corner.
The early-morning shooting occurred in a parking lot that is on Crowley property.
Witnesses said they saw Brookins begging for her life when a man shot her, then sped away.
Police closed off the front entrance of the 67-acre port terminal while detectives were investigating. Workers arriving for their Friday shift were taken in a different entrance.
Police at the scene confirmed that they had wanted to question Williams about the shooting.
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