14 DAY TRIAL // Police records show that the man shooting five people and committing suicide in South Carolina yesterday has prior arrests.
WSPA writes that 27-year-old Bryan Sweatt has been arrested before for burglary and theft, but he has never been charged with any violent crime.
"He's not always been a bad person, way back when he'd give you shirt off his back if he had to," his cousin, Leslee Ashley, describes.
The brutal mass murder took place in the remote rural community of Greenwood. The Heavy adds that the small town only has 70,000 residents, scattered in different areas.
Sweatt killed his girlfriend, Chandra Fields, during a domestic dispute related to custody over their 7-month-old baby girl. The girl was not injured because the gunman asked children in the house to leave and take his daughter.
Four children escaped the carnage and found refuge with a neighbor, who called 911.
"I just got four kids at my door that says somebody just killed their mama," she has told the dispatcher.
The Greenwood County police also received a call from the killer at around 6 p.m. yesterday. He told them that he was about to kill himself.
Local police are currently aided in their investigation by the Violent Crimes and The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
After receiving the call from the neighbor, authorities dispatched a SWAT team to the Callison Highway home.
They originally thought that they were dealing with a hostage situation, and tried to make contact with the gunman.
When they eventually entered the residence, they found him in a pool of blood on the floor, along with Fields, her parents and two children who share a different last name.
Sweatt had posted suicidal thoughts on Facebook a few weeks before the shooting spree. "Ive ask for someone to be here for me to take my mind off doing something stupid to hurt myself...[sic]," he wrote.