Enraged over a breakup with his girlfriend and not sure if he was the father of her child, a 28-year-old Dupo man shot her to death, then killed her 9-week-old son, a childhood buddy and a female acquaintance Wednesday night, police said.

Police said they would charge the man today with the shotgun slayings, which were carried out while a church candlelight vigil on domestic violence was under way in another part of town.

Authorities identified the suspect as Jason Smith. They said he showed up at an apartment complex on North 44th Street armed with a 12-gauge shotgun. From the parking lot, he could see through a window and into the living room of the basement apartment where his ex-girlfriend, Nicole Willyard, 19, was watching television. He fired. The shot shattered the window and struck Willyard. She was later found slumped in a chair with shots to her head and chest.

The man then went to the kitchen and shot Mary Cawvey, 19, who rented the apartment, and Brandon Lovell, 23, police said, adding that Willyard and her baby were staying with Cawvey because they were afraid of the suspect.

Cawvey, Willyard and Lovell were childhood friends in Dupo. Willyard and Lovell recently met often, studying for their GEDs. That might have sent a signal to Smith that Willyard and Lovell were romantically linked, said Rhonda Lovell, 50.

The shootings rattled the neighborhood as detectives went door-to-door early Thursday morning looking for the suspect. Police caught up with him about 2:45 a.m. in Red Bud. The shotgun was with Smith, Delaney said. Cawvey's boyfriend led police to the house where Smith was found, said Cawvey's mother, Donna. She said that police were looking for a second suspect in the killing, although police are not saying whether another person could be involved.

Sherrie Botsford has lived in the apartment just above where the murders happened for about a month. She was picking up her daughter, 2-month-old Rylee, from her mother's house about 10 p.m. when the television news flashed a shot of her apartment complex. She had her live-in boyfriend's cell phone so she couldn't call him.

She raced home to find ambulances and police cars filling the parking lot. Police would not let her in her apartment. When she realized he was safe, the relief was overwhelming. But so was the fear. She wants to move.

Walter Newman has lived in the apartment complex across the parking lot from the murders for 21 years. He said that when he moved in with his wife in 1984, he was the only man in the complex of older women. Now, his building - and the neighborhood - is filled with young, transient renters. Police officers pay almost weekly visits to the 18-unit apartment building at 212 North 44th Street, where the killings occurred, he said.

The shootings have rattled Belleville, a city of 41,000, and a triple-murder in March at a hair salon remains an open case, with no charges filed.

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