Neighbors call suspect ‘normal’

Sonya Padgett and Stacy Willis

Thursday, June 3, 1999 | 11:31 a.m.

Wednesday night Zane Floyd played basketball at his parents' tidy duplex in a quiet Las Vegas neighborhood.

Thursday morning the former vocational student and Marine machine gunner killed four people and seriously wounded another, Metro Police said today.

Wearing his Marine camouflage uniform and armed with a shotgun, the 23-year-old man opened fire after 5 a.m. in the Albertson's Food & Drug store at Valley View Boulevard and Sahara Avenue.

Floyd lived with his parents at 4101 W. Oakey Blvd., just a few blocks from the supermarket. Police arrested him without a struggle as he left the store. Police said they had no motive for the shooting rampage.

Floyd is the only child of Michael Floyd, who works as a fire inspector for a private company at the Nevada Test site, neighbors said. Floyd's mother is a school bus driver, neighbor Cathy Downey said.

Downey said she has known the Floyd family for years and said she was shocked when she heard the news of the shootings this morning. She watched Floyd playing basketball Wednesday night at his parents' home.

"We've been over to their house a few times. They've always been very helpful to me while I was raising my two kids," Downey said.

Downey's grandson, 14-year-old J.R. Schmal, said he used to play basketball with Floyd.

"He was like a normal kid. He liked to catch lizards, that was his favorite thing to do." Schmal said.

Downey said that Floyd had been living in a guest cottage behind his parent's house since he was discharged from the Marines in July.

She described Floyd as a "clean-cut, very polite young man."

Floyd's parents live in a duplex in a quiet, older neighborhood. The tidy block and wood house is surrounded by a wrought-iron and cement-block fence.

A man who lives in the duplex next to the Floyd family, who would not give his name, said he has known them for more than 10 years.

"They are in shock, there was no indication," that Floyd had been having problems, the neighbor said.

"He's a normal kid with good parents. We're discussing that inside the house -- what makes a person explode."