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Scott Evans Dekraai, 42, of Huntington Beach, is pictured in this booking photograph released October 13, 2011 by the Seal Beach Police department.
Credit: Reuters/Seal Beach Police DepartmentBy Tori RichardsSANTA ANA, Calif | Fri Oct 14, 2011 4:25pm EDT
SANTA ANA, Calif (Reuters) - A California man was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder on Friday in a shooting spree at a Seal Beach hair salon that killed his ex-wife and seven other people, prosecutors said.
Scott Evans Dekraai, 42, was also charged with a single count of attempted murder, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said at a news conference in Santa Ana.
One victim, a woman in her 70s, survived the attack that has been called the worst mass killing in Orange County history. She remains hospitalized.
Rackauckas announced that he would seek the death penalty against Dekraai, who he said was motivated by revenge against former wife Michelle Fournier, a stylist at the salon.
Dekraai and Fournier, who divorced in 2007, had been locked in a custody battle over their son.
"We believe that the defendant committed this unimaginable act of violence because he wanted to kill his ex-wife over a custody dispute over their eight-year-old son," Rackauckas said. "He was willing to end any life in his path, and he did."
The veteran prosecutor broke down into tears as he said that, at the time of the shooting on Wednesday afternoon, the boy had been waiting in the principal's office at his elementary school for his mother or father to pick him up.
"That little boy is a victim," he said.
"Now his mother has been murdered and he has to grow up knowing that his dad is a mass murderer. So what kind of sick, twisted fatherly love might that be?"
Fournier was at the front of the busy Salon Meritage when Dekraai entered and was one of the first two people shot, Seal Beach Acting Police Chief Tim Olson said at the news conference.
Also shot to death were her friend Christy Lynn Wilson and salon owner Randy Fannin.
Rackauckas said Dekraai was wearing body armor and carrying three guns and spent two minutes methodically shooting "anyone close enough to hit," pausing at one point to reload.
He was arrested a few blocks away after witnesses described his vehicle to police.
Dekraai was scheduled for an initial appearance in Orange County Superior Court on Friday afternoon.
On Thursday night, hundreds of mourners gathered outside Salon Meritage in a candlelight vigil for the victims, the crowd spilling into a nearby street.
(Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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