Who is John Russell Houser, the man behind the Lafayette theatre shooting

WATCH ABOVE: Lafayette police identify theater shooter as John Russell Houser.

Louisiana police identified 59-year-old John Russell Houser as the man who killed two people and injured several others at a Lafayette screening of Trainwreck  before turning the gun on himself.

Police described the aging man as “kind of a drifter” who had only been in Lafayette for a few weeks.

He was staying at a motel on University Avenue, approximately five kilometres from where the shooting took place.

Police released scant details on the shooter during a press conference the morning after the shooting. They searched the motel room where Houser was staying and “found wigs and glasses and disguises.”

What’s believed to be Houser’s LinkedIn profile suggests the shooter was educated but had a history of sporadic employment working in real estate and owning pubs.

The profile says he graduated from Columbus State University with a BBA in accounting in 1988 before attending Faulkner University, a Christian school in Alabama, for a J.D. in law between 1988 and 1991. Neither school returned requests for confirmation.

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His last listed job was “real estate developer” and only lasted eight months, ending in September 2006.  He wrote in the summary that he found a “spectacular estate” on 32^nd street in Phenix City, Alabama, cut it up and sold the lots while keeping one house for himself.

Before that, the profile says he owned two pubs, the first for 18 months in 1979-1980 and the second for slightly over two years between 1998 and 2000.

It listed his skills as financial analysis, public speaking, market forecast, and “God’s Business.”

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There was one recommendation on the page from David Braun, an old classmate of Houser’s who said “I saw David’s integrity upon our meeting twenty seven years ago and have never suspected otherwise.”

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It was deleted shortly after Houser’s name became public.  Braun did not respond to a request for comment.

Houser had sporadic appearances on social media besides the meandering LinkedIn account. A Twitter account created in March 2013 under the name John Russell Houser contains only two tweets – one contending the Internet was censored, and the other praising the homophobic Westboro Baptist Church.

A vague profile under the same name was also created on TeaPartyNation.com in June, 2013. The profile, though, contains no information other than the name.

It’s believed Houser was hoping to escape after the shooting, parking his 1995 Blue Lincoln Continental outside the theatre’s exit doors.

Investigators have not found any motive or links to other people involved in the shooting during their initial investigation.