A gunman on a shooting spree in suburban southern California shot and killed three people and wounded two others on Tuesday before killing himself, police said.
Local media reported that some of the gunman's attacks involved carjackings, although the circumstances that led to the spate of violence were not immediately clear.
Authorities first received a call on a shooting early in the morning at a home in Ladera Ranch, 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles, said Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino.
Officers arrived to find a woman shot to death. The suspect, a man in his 20s, fled the scene in a sport utility vehicle and headed to the nearby city of Tustin, where there were additional shootings, Amormino said.
One of those shootings was at an off-ramp to the 55 Freeway in Tustin, where another person was killed, said Tustin police Lieutenant Paul Garaven. An additional shooting blocks away left a third person dead and another wounded, he said.
Another shooting at a nearby freeway on-ramp left one more person wounded, he said.
Police caught up to the gunman, who was in a stolen vehicle, in the nearby city of Orange, where he killed himself as authorities closed in, television station KNBC reported.
Amormino, the county police spokesman, confirmed that the gunman shot himself, but gave no further details.
© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.