Crime & Safety

Wisc. Shooting Suspect Used to Live in Northbrook

On Sunday, police say 45-year-old Radcliffe Haughton killed four people and injured four others in a mass shooting at a Milwaukee spa. Before the shooting, Haughton had previously lived in Northbrook and Highwood.

Before moving to Milwaukee, shooting suspect Radcliffe Haughton and his family lived in Northbrook and Highwood, Haughton's father told Patch on Sunday.

Haughton is suspected of killing four people and injuring four others Sunday morning at a mass shooting at the Azana Spa across the street from the Brookfield Square mall in Brookfield, Wisc., a Milwaukee suburb.

Among the dead is the man believed to be the shooter, 45-year-old Haughton of Brown Deer. His body was later found inside the spa, 200 N. Calhoun Road, Brookfield Police Chief Dan Tushaus said.

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Tushaus said Haughton was the only suspect in the shootings.

Haughton 'put his wife on a pedestal.'

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Haughton's father — named Radcliffe Haughton Sr. — told Patch Sunday afternoon that his son was in the local car business and that he "put his wife on a pedestal."

"I'm his father," his dad told Patch from his home in Florida. "My son is a good person. I can't tell you what I think happened. My son loved his wife, and he put his wife on a pedestal, and he cared about her. He raised her daughter which he accepts as his stepdaughter, and they have one child together. She is now 13."

The younger Haughton moved to Milwaukee from Illinois to manage a Waukesha car dealership, his father said.

A pregnant woman among the injured

The four injured — all women — are being treated at Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa, the hospital said at about 5:30 p.m. Two were undergoing treatment in the emergency department for non-life-threatening conditions and two underwent surgery. Tushaus did not offer any condition updates at a 6:30 p.m. briefing on Sunday, but released the ages of the injured — 22, 30, 32 and 40. He said authorities are still trying to positively identify the deceased inside the salon, other than the shooter, and did not offer any details on them.

A spa employee said one of the victims was a front desk employee who was pregnant. That women was shot in the neck, but her injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, the employee said.

The employee told Patch that Haughton was the estranged husband of a hair stylist at the business. She said the hair stylist recently left Haughton and had been having trouble with him since then.

He was suspected of slashing some car tires in the parking lot of the spa and the business recently put up signs on most of its doors warning employees to keep them locked at all times, the employee told Patch.

On Oct. 8, a temporary restraining order was issued against Haughton. All of his weapons were supposed to be turned over to the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department as a condition of the order. Haughton was a former Marine, according to multiple reports.

The employee who spoke to Patch said Haughton was out of work and his wife had been working every day to bring in money to pay the bills. However, she recently decided to leave him, and that's when the problems started.

The couple has two daughters, ages 12 and 21, the Azana employee told Patch. JSOnline.com reported that the daughters were safe.

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