NASA Contractor Takes Hostage Two Dead

A NASA contractor took two co-workers hostage at Johnson Space Centre, killing one of them before turning the revolver on himself, just days after the bloodiest school shooting in US history.

Bill Phillips, an engineer with Jacobs Engineering who has worked for NASA for about 12 years, barricaded himself inside the building late yesterday, after managing to sneak a revolver past security at the sprawling space centre campus.

Phillips shot David Beverly in the chest, killing the NASA employee, and later shot himself in the head inside Building 44, a communications and engineering facility, officials said.

The second hostage, Fran Crenshaw, another NASA contract worker, was found duct-taped to a chair a few hours after the standoff began. She was treated at a hospital and released.

Police had tried to negotiate with the man but all they heard from the room was another gunshot. When they rushed in the room they found the two men dead and the woman bound at her hands and ankles.

On a chalkboard in the room where his body was found, Phillips left a list of names and phone numbers and a scribbled note, which was not immediately understandable, The Houston Chronicle reported Saturday.

Friday's shooting happened while the nation was mourning the 32 people shot dead by a South Korean student who killed himself after his rampage at Virginia Tech University on Monday.

All three were electrical engineers in their early 50s who knew each other, and they may even had had lunch together earlier in the day, Johnson Space Centre director Michael Coates told a news conference.

Officials did not know the motive behind the killing.

"Apparently there was some type of dispute between" Phillips and Beverly, Houston Police Chief Howard Hurtt told reporters.

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NASA Shooting; Two Engineers Dead in Houston