Police: estranged boyfriend wanted in deadly shooting of postal worker

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - Police have identified the man for which they are searching in connection to the deadly shooting of a postal worker at a DeKalb County post office on Monday evening.

DeKalb County Police said Quantez D’Ante Tyre is wanted for the murder of 22-year-old Tyrika Terrell. Terrell was fatally shot behind the post office located at 2724 Wesley Chapel Road near Snapfinger Road. Paramedics rushed the victim to the hospital, but she didn't survive.

Police describe Tyre as being 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing about 160 pounds. He was last seen running towards Wesley Chapel Road. Police consider him armed and extremely dangerous.

Investigators said Tyre is the estranged boyfriend of Terrell.

FOX 5 spoke with Terrell's family Tuesday.

"It's like one minute you're here and the next you're gone," Terrell's sister Danielle Thomas said. "You just never know when it will be your last day."

The United States Postal Inspectors have taken over the investigation and are being assisted by DeKalb County Police.

"It's never easy to lose a family member, but extra difficult during holiday season," Thomas said.

For hours, investigators could be seen scouring the post office's back loading dock. Police dogs also searched nearby bushes, woods, and a business next door.

"She loved her job," Thomas said. "She just started working there a month or so ago."

So far, no motive or suspect description has been released by officials.

"She was so funny and happy," Thomas said. "She was a joy to be around."

Mike Grogan told FOX 5 he saw surveillance video that might show a person of interest. That video, which investigators have also looked at, shows a man come into a nearby laundry mat. He sits down in a chair and tells people he is waiting for someone. Not long after the man gets up and walks away, people in the laundry mat reported hearing four shots fired.

"He was just as calm, cool and collected. You wouldn't think he was up to anything just by talking to him," a woman who witnessed the incident told FOX 5 News.

The woman described the gunman as being calm during the 30 minutes or so he spent in the laundromat, before gunning down an employee in the post office's rear parking lot, but she was suspicious because he kept looking out the front window. At one point he asked to use her phone.

"I went to the back, let him use the company phone and he made a phone call.  I don't know who he was talking to but whoever he was talking to he told them he was at the postal service but he was not at the postal service he was sitting here at the coin laundry," she said.

A little after letting the unknown assailant use the phone, the laundromat employee walked to a nearby store. She was returning to work when she saw the killer walk out of the laundromat in the direction of the post office's rear parking lot.

"When I was coming back up the sidewalk, he was coming out of the door. He started up the sidewalk here. Apparently, he seen the girl and he bent the corner and I heard 'pow pow pow pow.' I came in and I locked the door," the woman said.

Grogan also said Terrell was fairly young and had only worked at the Post Office for about a month. That information has yet to be confirmed by investigators.

Terrell leaves behind a 6-month-old baby girl.

"Her baby meant everything to her," Thomas said. "It's devastating that she's now going to have to grow up without her mom."