James Edward Pough

James Edward "Pop" Pough (February 16, 1948 – June 18, 1990) was an American spree killer, who, on June 18, 1990, killed nine people and wounded four others in a General Motors Acceptance Corporation car loan office in Jacksonville, Florida, before committing suicide. The day before, he had already killed a prostitute and her pimp, wounded two teenagers, and robbed a convenience store.

The shooting at the GMAC office was the worst single-day massacre by a lone gunman in Florida history, surpassing the murder of eight machine shop employees in Hialeah by Carl Robert Brown on August 20, 1982.

Early life

Pough, who was born on February 16, 1948, in Jacksonville, Florida and was the first of nine children, grew up in an area near Florida Community College at Jacksonville. As a child, Pough suffered from asthma and he had a close relationship to his mother, whom he helped out a lot after his father had left the family in 1959. He attended a vocational school, but dropped out in his sophomore year. At the age of 18, he began working as a common laborer, which he stayed as until his death. He earned a reputation as a very reliable worker and his business agent would later describe him as one of their best, and somebody who was never late. During the last year of his life, he was doing construction maintenance at a brewery.