Woman killed near SD salon called a 'sweetheart' - KOTA Territory News

By DIRK LAMMERS and KRISTI EATON

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) _ Friends are mourning the death of a woman killed outside of a South Dakota hair salon.

Police say 24-year-old Amanda Connors was found dead Tuesday from a gunshot wound in the parking lot of a Cost Cutters in Sioux Falls.

Thirty-eight-year-old Tyrone Leeon Smith holed up inside of the salon for a few hours before authorities found him dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police say Smith kidnapped his two children from a baby sitter before heading to the salon.

Connors was a manager at the salon. A friend says she had worked there about two years.

The Argus Leader newspaper reported Tuesday that the children's mother had filed a protective order against Smith. He recently had pleaded not guilty to a domestic violence charge.

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By Dirk Lammers and Kristi Eaton, Associated Press

       SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) _ Police say an armed man who holed up inside a South Dakota hair salon has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
 
       Sioux Falls police Sgt. Loren McManus says authorities discovered the man's body shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday. The man had been inside a Cost Cutters salon along a busy Sioux Fall street since about 1:30 p.m.
 
       McManus says police believe the man had earlier taken his two young children from a babysitter's home. Soon after, police got a report of a car wreck near the salon and discovered a woman in her early 20s dead of a gunshot wound inside the vehicle.
 
       McManus says the children are in police custody.
 
       Businesses around the salon had been evacuated and two nearby schools had been on lock down.
 

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