OMAHA, Neb. — A man suspected of killing his parents and niece in Nebraska was taken into custody Wednesday in western Tennessee, the same state he fled to after killing his wife two decades ago, authorities said.
John Dalton Jr., 46, was captured by the U.S. Marshals Service without incident on Interstate 40 in Jackson, Tennessee, according to a statement from Omaha police. The shootings were reported Tuesday evening in Omaha, which is about 680 miles (1,094 kilometers) northwest of Jackson.
Dalton was wanted on a first-degree murder felony warrant for the shootings of his parents, 70-year-old John Dalton Sr. and 65-year-old Jean Dalton, in their home. His 18-year-old niece, Leonna Dalton-Phillip, was also killed.
“Leonna was stopping by after work to pick up her sister and get a plate of food from her grandmother,” her father, Claude Phillip, told the Omaha World-Herald . “Her car was still running. That’s how fast all this happened.”
He said her younger sister ran to a neighbor’s house around 7:30 p.m., saying: “They shot my family.”
Investigators said the shooting happened Tuesday evening, but they have offered no possible motive.
Court records indicate John Dalton Jr. was charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of his wife, Shannon Dalton, in September 1998. After that shooting, Dalton fled to Tennessee, where he was captured a few days later, according to police.
He made a deal with prosecutors and was imprisoned in late 1999, after pleading guilty to manslaughter and other crimes. He was paroled in 2010.
His criminal record also includes convictions for delivery of cocaine, and leaving the scene of an accident and fleeing to avoid arrest in the early 1990s.
