New details about a Delaware courthouse shooting, that ended with three people dead, are emerging this afternoon revealing a tangled web of relationships and a history of custody fights and police run-ins. Details of the incident, which shut down parts of downtown Wilmington, DE for hours, are changing quickly -- including the identity of the deceased shooter.
According to Delaware Online, police originally mis-identified the New Castle County Courthouse shooter as the ex-husband of one of the victims. But according to reports, police and legal sources have since confirmed the shooter was actually the father of the man first identified as the alleged gunman -- and that he shot and killed the mother of his grandchildren. Sources say the shooter is Thomas Matusiewicz -- the father of a Delaware man convicted of kidnapping his three young children from 2007 to 2009 and taking them out of the country. One of the victims of today's courthouse shooting is the girls' mother, 39-year-old Christine Belford. She was reportedly embattled in a bitter custody battle with her children's father.
Another person, an unidentified woman, was also killed in the courthouse shooting. Two capital police officers working in the courthouse were also reportedly shot.
It's still unclear if Belford, her ex-husband David T. Matusiewicz, or his father Thomas Matusiewicz had a court hearing today or why they were in the courthouse. It's also unclear if Thomas Matusiewicz, who was originally identified as the alleged shooter, was even in the courthouse at the time of the shooting.
Belford was reportedly remarried and was raising her three children in the Pike Creek area.
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