JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – On June 18, 1990, a gunman went into the General Motors Acceptance Corporation office building on Baymeadows Road, took the lives of eight people and wounded several others. It is said to have been the deadliest mass shooting in Florida history until the Pulse nightclub massacre in 2016.
News4JAX covered that devastating day 35 years ago. It’s a day forever etched in Robyn Sieron’s memory. Sieron was a reporter for News4jax at the time, and was one of the first reporters on scene.
“It was just so overwhelming and shocking, and the sadness that enveloped our community, it’s just really hard to believe. It’s just a day that is burned in my mind forever,” former News4JAX reporter Robyn Sieron said.
Archive footage shows injured victims being taken away and families arriving at the scene, awaiting news about their loved ones.
After the massacre, the shooter, identified as James Edward Pough, turned the gun on himself. Just days before, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office confirmed Pough had shot and killed two other people and injured two others. Former Jacksonville Sheriff Jim McMillan gave the updates as they came in, sharing one of the ladies killed inside the GMAC loan office was the wife of a JSO officer.
“I was pretty composed, and I am an emotional person, and watching it brings you back to that moment,” Sieron said. “We were all really trembling inside and scared about what was happening and feeling for the community.”
Tragically, mass shooting events are now much more common. But in 1990, they were considered to be rare. Through the chaos, Sieron remembers working hard to stay focused on the task at hand — informing the community. But she said some moments were still very emotionally challenging.
She recalled seeing someone she knew personally arrive to the scene and receive news that his wife was one of the victims.
“It was difficult to watch, knowing his life would never be the same. His family’s life would never be the same,” she said.
Many years later, Jacksonville has had similar tragedies. Including the shooting that took place at the Jacksonville Landing during a video gaming tournament in 2018. In that tragedy, a gunman shot and killed two people and injured multiple others before taking his own life.
And in 2023, a gunman opened fire inside a Dollar General store in Northwest Jacksonville killing three people, in what was described by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office as a racially motivated attack. Sieron says these tragedies happen too often, and it is important to remember the lives lost.
“It’s so important to embrace their families and let them know that we can’t forget,” Sieron said. “We have to hold them dear.”
