Plymouth shooting: Killer’s mother was his first victim

Steve Hopkins

Jake Davison killed five people in the Keyham area of the city including a 3-year-old girl.

The first victim of Jake Davison’s Plymouth killing spree was his mother, police have confirmed.

Davison shot 51-year-old Maxine Davison, also known as Maxine Chapman, at her home in Biddick Drive, in the Keyham district of the city, before shooting four others on Thursday night. He then turned his pump-action gun on himself.

Sophie Martyn, 3, was Davison’s second victim. Then he killed her father, Lee Martyn, 43.

Davison, 22, also killed Stephen Washington, 59, and Kate Shepherd, 66, in a shooting spree that lasted around six minutes.

Plymouth shooting: The ‘horrendous’ eyewitness accounts of gunman’s rampage

Plymouth Gunman who killed five named

Plymouth shooting: Child among six killed

Two other people – a 33-year-old man and 53-year-old woman – survived with “significant” injuries and continue to receive treatment.

Police received multiple calls about the shooting at 6.11pm and arrived on the scene within six minutes, but by then Davison’s rampage was over and he was dead.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Devon and Cornwall Police Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer said that Davison had a gun license in 2020 and that a motive had not yet been established. It was not known if Davison had any mental health issues, but police have said the attack was not terror-related.

In a statement on Friday evening the force added: “As previously said by Devon & Cornwall Police, the firearm believed to have been used during the incident was legally held by the offender. The circumstances surrounding that have now been subject to a mandatory referral to the IOPC by Devon & Cornwall Police.”

The statement added that police were continuing to investigate 13 scenes within the cordon in Keyham which would likely remain in place throughout the weekend.

Davison’s social media profiles paint a troubling picture.

In his last video uploaded to YouTube, Davison talked about being a “terminator”.

Davison, an apprentice crane operator, described himself on his YouTube channel as an ‘incel’ and made references to the fatalist ‘blackpill’ philosophy to which the radical fringe group subscribes, the Telegraph reported, noting also that he appeared to have an obsession with guns.

In his final video post, on July 28, the newspaper said that Davison spent 11-minutes talking about how his life had hit a dead end and his struggles with attracting women and weight loss. The video blog ended with Davison saying he likes to think “I’m a Terminator”.

“The whole premise of the Terminator movies is that you know everything is rigged against you, there’s no hope for humanity, you know, we’re on the brink of extinction, these machines are unstoppable killing machines that can’t be beaten, can’t be outsmarted, but yet humanity still tries to fight to the end,” Davison said in the video.

“I know it’s a movie, but, you know, I like to think sometimes I’m a Terminator or something and despite reaching almost total system failure, he keeps trying to accomplish his mission.”

Davison’s YouTube account has since been deleted. A spokesperson for the platform told JOE on Friday: “Our hearts go out to those affected by this terrible incident. We have strict policies to ensure our platform is not used to incite violence. In addition, we also have long-standing policies that prohibit those responsible for attacks like these from having a YouTube channel and have since terminated their channel from our platform.”