'You'll be sorry' - hospital killer

A man told his estranged wife and her mother “they’d be sorry” before pulling a handgun from his coat pocket and shooting both women dead at a Georgia hospital as horrified people watched in the waiting room.

“He shot the mother-in-law-first and then shot his wife,” Fort Oglethorpe police chief David Eubanks said.

“There was a crowd of the folks in the waiting room, but he just exacted his revenge on his two targets and left them alone.”

The killings happened on Friday at Hutcheson Medical Centre in north Georgia, about 10 miles from the Tennessee border. Police identified the suspect as James Benson, 59, a security guard from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Investigators say he drove to the police station and turned himself in shortly afterwards.

Police say he had been separated from his wife Mary, 56, of Rossville, Georgia, and their marital problems apparently prompted the violence. Mrs Benson was killed alongside her mother, Charlotte Johnson, 76, of Chattanooga, as they visited a relative in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

Benson said nothing yesterday as he appeared before a Walker County Magistrate Court judge, who formally charged him with two counts of felony murder.

Mr Eubanks said Benson had no criminal record and was licensed to carry a firearm. He said the suspect was seen arguing with his wife at the hospital earlier in the week and employees asked him to leave, but did not find him threatening enough to call police.

“There was an exchange between him and his wife about her coming back home,” Mr Eubanks said. “Apparently he got a little loud and the hospital staff asked him to leave.”

But Benson returned to the hospital on Friday and witnesses told police he again confronted his wife and mother-in-law.

“He told them they’d be sorry, walked to the car and came back with a gun in his pocket,” Mr Eubanks said.

Hospital board chairman Corky Jewel said yesterday the hospital had stepped up security by adding extra unarmed guards around the clock.