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Authorities identify 4 people killed in Texas shootings

Posted at 6:07 AM, Aug 08, 2013
and last updated 2013-08-08 18:48:48-04

UPDATE: Authorities identified Thursday the four people killed in two Dallas-area homes as Zina Bowser, 47, Neima Williams, 28, Toya Smith, 43, and Tasmia Allen, 17. They said the suspect in the shootings is Erbie Bowser, who was dating Smith. Zina Bowser was the suspect’s estranged wife, authorities said.

Original story continues below:

By Jason Hanna and Marlena Baldacci

(CNN) — A Texas man killed four women — including, her relatives say, his ex-girlfriend — and wounded three teens and a boy in shootings at two Dallas-area homes, police say.

The man was arrested at the second home after a child there called 911, according to police.

When the shootings were done Wednesday night, there were two slain women and two wounded minors at each location — one in Dallas and the other in DeSoto, roughly 15 miles to the south.

None of the victims’ names were released. Relatives of one victim told CNN affiliate WFAA that she had previously dated the suspect.

DeSoto police initially identified the suspect as Erbie Bowser, but police declined to name him in a news conference later Thursday morning. No charges have been announced.

The Dallas Mavericks said Bowser used to be a member of the NBA team’s Mavs ManiAACs, an all-male hip-hop dance troupe that entertains fans at games. He left the squad in 2009, Mavericks spokesman Scott Tomlin said.

Bowser was a special education teacher for Mesquite Independent School District east of Dallas from December 2001 through March 2010, last teaching at Berry Middle School, district spokeswoman Laura Jobe said. He resigned and “left us on good terms,” she said.

CNN’s attempts to contacts Bowser’s relatives weren’t immediately successful.

Relative had bad feeling after call

Authorities first learned of the Dallas shootings at 10:30 p.m., when relatives found the carnage there and called 911, police said.

Beforehand, one of the victims had talked to her mother on the phone. Something about the conversation concerned the mother, so after calling back and getting no response, she drove with some family members to the Dallas home, where they saw the four who had been shot, Dallas police Maj. Jeff Cotner said.

A woman and her adult daughter were dead inside the house. Injured were the woman’s 14-year-old son and a 17-year-old girl who was a family friend, Cotner said.

Dallas police had reason to suspect the gunman might have a DeSoto connection, and called DeSoto police, Cotner said.

Minutes later — at 10:45 p.m., while police were traveling to check the DeSoto home — a child called 911 to report the shooting there, DeSoto police spokeswoman Melissa Franks said.

The gunman had used “some sort of explosive device,” and then shot at the people inside, Franks said.

Two women there were killed and two boys — ages 11 and 13 — were injured, she said.

Police arrested the suspect there without incident, she said.

The conditions of the injured weren’t released.

Dallas and DeSoto investigators are working together on the case. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating the nature of the explosive device, Franks said.

CNN’s Paul Caron, Tina Burnside and Ben Brumfield contributed to this report.

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