“…Shamar Elkins, 31, who served in the Louisiana Army National Guard, visited the local Veterans Affairs hospital for a mental health evaluation, stayed there for a week and a half and was released, said Crystal Brown-Page, a cousin of Elkins’s brother-in-law, Troy Brown.
Elkins’s wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, told him she was seeking a divorce, and they were due to appear in court Monday, Brown-Page said.
“I think that triggered something in him,” she said, but they had not argued the previous week and he had not been violent in the past. “There were no previous signs.”
Troy Brown, who lived with Elkins and whose 10-year-old son was also killed in the rampage, agreed.
“He had his head on straight, talking about the things he was going to do right, being a good dad,” Brown said, adding that the night before the shooting, when Brown left to work night shift, Elkins joked with him as he moved his car to let Brown pull out.
“He was calm. It’s like he had no cares in the world,” Brown said.…”
