JSO identifies suspect in railroad crossing shooting deaths of 2 women in Jacksonville

Gary T. Mills, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union
·2 min read

Five weeks after two women were gunned down at a San Marco railroad crossing, Jacksonville authorities have identified 22-year-old Ty Christopher Head as a suspect in their deaths.

Head, however, died by suicide the following day near Nashville, Tenn., some 600 miles from the crime scene, said Alan Parker, chief of investigations for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

While the person behind the fatal shootings of Paige Pringle, 28, and Tara Baker, 53, is known, his motive in their killings is not, Parker said.

Paige Pringle, 28, was shot and killed along with another woman Aug. 9 outside a railroad crossing on Hendricks Avenue in Jacksonville. She worked at Dos Gatos, which posted the bar's grief on its Facebook.
Paige Pringle, 28, was shot and killed along with another woman Aug. 9 outside a railroad crossing on Hendricks Avenue in Jacksonville. She worked at Dos Gatos, which posted the bar's grief on its Facebook.

“We do not definitively know why these murders happened. When Head took his own life, he blocked the only avenue for investigators to conclusively answer this question,” Parker said at a news briefing Wednesday, noting that Pringle’s family was in attendance.

“While we can’t provide them with justice through an arrest and prosecution, we hope that this information provides them with some sort of peace,” he said.

Parker said that Head, driving a gray Volkswagen Passat, was following Pringle as she drove on Hendricks Avenue after leaving Dos Gatos where she was a popular bartender at about 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 9. She stopped at a railroad crossing for a passing train, while Baker also stopped by the sidewalk on a bicycle.

Tara Baker and fiance Maurice Fisher. Baker was on a bicycle stopped at a Hendricks Avenue railroad crossing when she was shot and killed Aug. 9. Paige Pringle, who was in a vehicle stopped there too, also was killed.
Tara Baker and fiance Maurice Fisher. Baker was on a bicycle stopped at a Hendricks Avenue railroad crossing when she was shot and killed Aug. 9. Paige Pringle, who was in a vehicle stopped there too, also was killed.

Head parked his car, got out of the vehicle and shot both women, Parker said.

Captured on nearby surveillance video, the car’s color, make and model were the only leads Jacksonville detectives had, the chief said. Working with federal agents, they were able to develop Head as a possible suspect.

They also matched the shell casing found outside Head’s car where he shot himself to those found at the crime scene in Jacksonville, Parker said. Head’s 9mm handgun was later determined to be the gun used to kill Pringle and Baker, he said.

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Ty Head, 22, killed himself Aug. 10, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office identified him as the suspect in the shooting deaths of two women at a Hendricks Avenue railroad crossing a day earlier.
Ty Head, 22, killed himself Aug. 10, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office identified him as the suspect in the shooting deaths of two women at a Hendricks Avenue railroad crossing a day earlier.

Police said Head had no criminal history but that he had been living in a sober halfway house in Jacksonville Beach until a few days before the homicides, when he apparently left the house and was living out of his car.

An online obituary for Head noted that he was born in Naples but had been raised in Ocala since age 2.

A $13,000 reward had been raised for tips leading to an arrest in the case.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville police: Ty Head shot, killed 2 women at railroad crossing