By JIM VERTUNO and ACACIA CORONADO Associated Press
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AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas man killed his parents and four others and wounded two police officers in a daylong trail of violence stretching from San Antonio to Austin, authorities said Wednesday.

Shane James, 34, of San Antonio, was charged with two counts of capital murder after separate attacks in Austin and San Antonio that began Tuesday morning and ended with James crashing his car that evening during a police pursuit.

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James has a history of mental health problems and a prior arrest on charges of assaulting family members, authorities said.

His parents, Phyllis James, 55, and Shane James Sr. 56, were found dead in their home in the San Antonio area, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said at a news conference. Four more people were found dead in two homes in Austin, more than 80 miles (130 kilometers) away, officials said.

The Austin victims were not immediately identified. James would be charged with murder or capital murder in his parents’ deaths as well, Salazar said.

A cyclist in Austin also was shot and wounded, and two police officers were recovering from gunshots, including one who was shot in the leg outside of a high school, Austin interim Police Chief Robin Henderson said.

Henderson said it was unclear what, if any, relationship the man had to the victims in the Austin area.

Online jail records did not indicate whether James has an attorney and several people listed as his relatives in public records did not immediately respond to phone messages Wednesday.

James is a former U.S. Army infantry officer who served from February 2013 to August 2015, according to Lt. Col. Ruth Castro, Army spokesperson. He had no deployments and his last rank was first lieutenant.

James was arrested in January 2022 on charges of misdemeanor assault of his parents and a sibling and taken to jail.

Two weeks later, the family told a victim advocates liaison that he had mental health problems and asked that he be released from jail, Salazar said.

James cut off his ankle monitor the day after he was released, prompting a misdemeanor probation violation warrant, Salazar said. Cutting off an ankle monitor has since been upgraded to a felony.

Deputies went to the parents’ house in August when James was reported to be naked in the yard and behaving strangely. They went into the home but did not arrest James because he had barricaded himself in a bedroom, Salazar said. Deputies are limited in their use of forced entry on a misdemeanor warrant, the sheriff said.

The deputies told the father to call them when James came out and they would come back to arrest him, but the father never called, Salazar added.

“It’s always possible we could have done more, had they been able to safely put hands on him,” Salazar said. “They were making every effort to avoid a violent confrontation with an unarmed man. That is a no-win situation for them.”