New Jersey: A gunman drove across the country to confront his estranged wife, then killed her in a church vestibule as Sunday services let out, authorities said.
Two other people were injured in the attack, which sent churchgoers scrambling for safety.
Police identified the slain woman as 24-year-old Reshma James and the gunman as 27-year-old Joseph M Pallipurath of Sacramento, California.
Abusive marriage
Police said James had recently moved from California to New Jersey to escape an abusive marriage and had filed a restraining order against Pallipurath.
The abuse dated to their years in India, then continued after they moved to California, police said.
Most recently, James had left him to live with a relative in New Jersey, where she filed a restraining order against her husband, police said.
Police are searching for Pallipurath and warned people that he was believed to be armed.
About 200 people were attending services inside St Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church in Clifton when he opened fire.
Churchgoers described bedlam after the shots rang out. "Kids were crying. People were screaming," said Suja Alummoottil. "It was chaotic."
Police did not identify the other two victims, but Rowan told The Star-Ledger of Newark that all three were shot in the head and that the other two, a 47-year-old woman and 23-year-old man, were in critical condition.
Alummoottil (40) said Pallipurath appeared angry when he confronted James in the vestibule as the service was concluding.
Members of the church are mostly first-generation immigrants and their children from Kerala.