Arkansas man pleads guilty in 2024 mass shooting at grocery store that killed 4

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas man changed his plea to guilty Monday in the shooting at a grocery store last year that killed four people and injured 11 others, including two police officers.

Travis Eugene Posey, 45, pleaded guilty to four counts of capital murder and 11 counts of attempted capital murder in the June 2024 shooting, according to his attorney. Gregg Parrish, executive director of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission, said Posey’s sentencing is set for Aug. 4.

Parrish declined to comment further. The shooting occurred last year at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce, a city of about 3,200 people located 65 miles (104 kilometers) south of Little Rock.

Posey has been held without bond since the shooting and last year pleaded not guilty to the same charges.

Posey entered the plea during a hearing in Camden, which is located 29 miles (45 kilometers) southwest of Fordyce.

Posey had been scheduled to go to trial next month for the shooting. Prosecutors and police have not publicly identified any motive for Posey, who was shot and injured by officers who exchanged fire with him. Police have said he did not appear to have a personal connection to any of the victims.

During the shooting, which occurred in the middle of the day, Posey carried a 12-gauge shotgun, a pistol and a bandolier with dozens of extra shotgun rounds, authorities said. He fired most, if not all, of the rounds using the shotgun, opening fire at people in the parking lot before entering the store and firing “indiscriminately” at customers and employees, police said. Multiple gunshot victims were found inside the store and in the parking lot, police said.

Posey lived in New Edinburg, a small town of about 150 people located southeast of Fordyce.

One of the women injured in the shooting has sued Posey, seeking monetary damages to cover medical care, lost earnings and other expenses as a result of the shooting. Attorneys for the woman have requested that a judge enter a default judgment against Posey, as he has not responded to the complaint.

The shooting had temporarily closed the only grocery store in the small town of Fordyce, prompting food distribution sites to be set up around the community. The Mad Butcher reopened 11 days after the shooting.

Authorities have said Posey had limited to no criminal history before the shooting, though he was arrested in 2011 at the entrance of Fort Drum in New York and charged with misdemeanor criminal possession of a weapon.

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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Posey’s attorney’s last name. It should be Parrish, not Parish.