Authorities confirmed on Monday that a man has been arrested and charged with killing four people and injuring another during a shooting spree over the holiday weekend.
Police announced in a statement that Iren Byers, a 20-year-old Arizona man, was located on Sunday afternoon and took him into custody in Mesa, Ariz. Court documents show Byers is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder. Mesa Police Detective Brandi George said that Byers admitted to the shootings during questioning, and is cooperating while in police custody. He told them that in each of the five slayings he did not call for medical help because he believed his victims “did not deserve it;” adding that most of the victims were homeless and that Byers was “angry toward people who used drugs.”
Police first responded to a 911 call of shots fired around 3:40 p.m. Friday in downtown Phoenix, where they discovered a 41-year-old man dead at the scene. A second call came in around 10:30 p.m. in the Beverly Park neighborhood in northwest Mesa, where officers located a second 41-year-old victim who had died from gunshot wounds. While still at that scene, police located a 36-year-old woman nearby who had also been shot shortly after midnight. The woman was taken to the hospital to undergo surgery, and was listed in stable condition early Sunday. At around 1 a.m. another call to police was made, where they found another 41-year-old man that had died from his injuries. Nearly one hour later, investigators found the final victim, a 40-year-old man also killed by gunfire, located in Mesa around 2 a.m. on Saturday.
Investigators said they identified Byers using surveillance video collected from public transit, as well as a home and businesses. Later, investigators preliminarily matched the same 9mm handgun to all five shootings using shell casings, and they later recovered the gun at Byers’ residence along with other evidence.
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