SACRAMENTO -- A 29-year-old man hospitalized for attempted suicide was charged with murder Saturday in a barroom shooting spree that killed three people and wounded nine others at an 'end of summer' party.
Police arrested Douglas Mozingo, of Sacramento, at the Sacramento Medical Center where he was taken following a suicide attempt. Mozingo's nephew is on death row at San Quentin Prison.
Authorities said witnesses identified Mozingo as the gunman who fired an automatic rifle and pistol indiscriminately into the crowd at 'The Mother Lode' bar.
Police Sgt. Bob Burns said Mozingo, whose nephew Ronny was sent to death row at San Quentin in April 1980, was charged with three counts of murder and nine counts of attempted murder.
Ronny Mozingo was convicted of the strangulation murder of his stepmother, whose death had been patterned after a scene from a movie he saw just before release from prison at Soledad.
Bar owner Ron Muller said the suspect opened fire at the crowd at about 9:15 p.m. PDT, only two hours after he was ejected because of a fight.
Two people were killed at the scene, Pamela McCoy, 27, and Randall Sherwood, 28, both of Sacramento. The third victim, Rhonda Lyons, 26, also of Sacramento, died at the hospital.
Three of the injured were reported hospitalized in critical condition with head, chest and other wounds.
Between 20 and 30 people were in the saloon when the shootings occurred.
A sign in front of the bar billed the party as 'The Mother Lode end of summer party' with live music.
'I heard one big, loud pop,' Muller said. 'I saw him standing in the door. All of a sudden glass was breaking.'
One bar patron said when the gunfire started, 'Immediately people began ducking for cover and screaming and yelling. Someone said, 'There's somebody going crazy.''
A woman who left a few minutes before the shootings said, 'My girlfriend was standing there and two people went down on either side of her.'
The one-story brickfront saloon is located in a factory and residential area of Sacramento, north of the Capitol.