A man is being held on murder charges after shooting a female coworker he was “obsessed” with.
The incident occurred on October 17th at Allegiance Trucking in Lewisville, Texas.
According to ABC 8, 51-year-old Travis Merrill first became “obsessed with [Tamhara] Collazo and became increasingly angry” over “unauthorized long breaks” and her “not paying any attention” to him over the course of a few months.
Collazo reportedly requested that Merrill stop tracking her breaks, and mentioned Merrill’s behavior to the company administrators. Merrill was then required to speak with a counselor on the phone before he was permitted to return to work, which he did. Upon his return, Merrill believed “everyone must think he’s a psychopath” and that Collazo was now avoiding him, which fueled his anger.
Merrill’s anger then drove him to purchase guns, and he “practiced his movements with them” in preparation for shooting Collazo. Merrill told detectives that Collazo “had caused him pain, and he wanted her to feel pain, so he intentionally planned to shoot her at work with everyone there.”
Merrill allegedly brought his guns to work two times prior to the actual shooting but did not commit the murder then because “it didn’t feel like the right time.”
On the day of the shooting, Merrill followed Collazo out to her car on her break and watched her from his own car as he prepared his guns, eventually following her inside, where he “ambushed” her at her cubicle and shot her at least four times.
Police responded to the scene immediately and Collazo was transported to a hospital, but soon died of her injuries. Merrill agreed to speak with police and confessed to the shooting. He is currently being held in the Denton County Jail on a $10,000,000 bond.
“The company is providing support to the victim’s family and the rest of our employees who, thankfully, were unharmed, and we have closed our Lewisville office indefinitely. We are also working closely with law enforcement during their ongoing investigation,” Allegiance Trucks said in a statement.
“We ask for the community’s support as our company has unfortunately joined the growing national community of workplaces affected by gun violence.”