JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A man who was fired from a private school on Tuesday returned to campus with a gun hidden in a guitar case and shot the headmistress to death before committing suicide, authorities said.
No students were injured.
Officers responded to the Episcopal School of Jacksonville at 1:23 p.m. Tuesday after receiving reports of a person with a gun, and the school was placed on lockdown. When officers arrived, Dale Regan, head of the school, and the gunman were found dead, Undersheriff Dwain Senterfitt said.
The gunman has not been identified.
Episcopal has about 900 students in grades 6-12. Its campus sits along the south bank of the St. Johns River in central Jacksonville.
Regan began working as a teacher at the school in 1978, according to a profile published in The Florida Times Union in 2010. She later went on to become the first female to hold the school's top position.
In 2011, Regan was honored for her accomplishments with the newspaper's EVE Award for Education. She was recognized for her work in opening two new classrooms at the school that utilize new technology and are designed to foster innovation in teaching.
Read reporting on the incident from The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, Fla.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
