SAN RAFAEL, Calif. -- A grandmother, apparently enraged over the arrest of her daughter in a bitter child-custody case, shot her former son-in-law to death, then killed herself before horrified spectators during a court hearing.
Sylvia Tolson, 67, fired a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver twice into the chest of David Michael Lafont, a San Rafael stockbroker attending the arraignment Friday of his ex-wife, Laina Tolson, on child-stealing charges, Marin County Sheriff Charles Prandi said.
She then shot herself in the head, while the judge and some 30 screaming spectators dove for cover.
Laina Tolson, 36, had been arrested by the FBI Sunday night at her parent's home in Stockton, Calif., on a warrant stemming from a child-stealing complaint by Lafont. Their 9-year-old daughter, Camille Lafont, was placed in a foster home after the arrest.
Lafont, 36, died at the scene. His former mother-in-law died at Marin General Hospital two hours later.
'The gunshots sounded like a hammer pounding,' one witness said, 'and then there were screams and crying and a woman shouted, 'Oh, God, no!''
Laina Tolson saw the shooting from the defendant's dock. She was taken to the psychiatric jail ward at Highland Hospital in Oakland, sheriff's deputies said.
Her father, Jack Tolson, 66, had just stood up to talk to one of the three bailiffs when the shooting started. He was questioned and released.
Municipal Judge Ernest Zunino said there was no time for anyone to react. He said he had just set a $100,000 bail for Laina Tolson when the shots rang out.
Lawyer Paul Burgin, who was in the courtroom, said, 'I dove down into the jury box, then there were two more shots. I ran out the door in the back of the court. I didn't look back.'
The courtroom is down the hall from where lawyer Stephen Bingham is standing trial on murder and conspiracy charges in the 1971 San Quentin Prison riot. That trial was in recess at the time of the shooting.
The courthouse does not use metal detectors, Prandi said.
Lafont and Laina Tolson were married in 1977 and separated two years later. After their divorce, the mother gained custody of the girl and the father visitation rights.
But Laina Tolson told a probation officer she refused to let her ex-husband see the child, and she reportedly moved between California and Nevada to avoid him.
A 1985 federal law gave Lafont the opportunity to obtain the child stealing warrant. FBI agents tracked her to Stockton Sunday night.
The shooting was the second in the Marin County Hall of Justice. On Aug. 7, 1970, 17-year-old Jonathan Jackson, brother of black activist inmate George Jackson, walked into a courtroom with four guns, freed three San Quentin Prison convicts, and they took the judge, a prosecutor and three jurorshostages.
The judge and three of the kidnappers, including young Jackson, were then killed in a shootout with police.
Black radical activist Angela Davis later was charged with conspiracy in the shootings, but she was acquitted.
George Jackson died in the Aug. 21, 1971, San Quentin riot that produced the murder charges against Bingham, who is accused of giving Jackson the gun that started the riot.
