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Zephen Allen Xaver, 21, shot five women dead inside the SunTrust Bank on US 27 in Sebring, Florida, on January 23, 2019, then called 911 himself and stayed on the line through the standoff before he was taken into custody.

Xaver walked in at about 12:32 p.m. wearing a ballistic vest under his sweatshirt. Minutes earlier, he had texted his girlfriend that he was going to die that day and that he was going to kill people just to know how it would feel.

He drew a handgun on a teller, made her lock both doors, and ordered everyone in the lobby against a wall. He had the five women lie face down with their heads toward the wall and shot them, nine rounds in all, at about 12:35 p.m.

He dialed police a minute later and said he had shot five people. While still on the line, he walked back to the bodies and fired twice more. Partway through the call, he put the gun to his own head and told the operator he might kill himself. He later told the negotiator he had been hearing voices telling him to kill, and that holding the gun to his head made the voices weaker.

The dead were Cynthia Watson, 65, a customer; Marisol Lopez, 55, a teller coordinator; Ana Pinon-Williams, 38, a banker trainee; Debra Cook, 54, a teller; and Jessica Montague, 31, a banker. One employee lived. He had been in the break room when the shooting started and got out the back door, then called 911 from outside.

The negotiator talked Xaver into putting the gun down, and a SWAT team drove an armored vehicle through the glass front of the branch and took him into custody. He had told them he was carrying a nine-millimeter and wearing body armor.

Xaver was born in Plymouth, Indiana and raised in nearby Bremen. He had been a corrections officer trainee at Avon Park Correctional Institution and resigned on January 9, 2019, two weeks before the shooting. He said he did it because he wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone. On December 16, 2024 he was sentenced to death.

The recording is Xaver's own call, running about 36 minutes from the moment he tells the call taker where he is. It covers the whole standoff: the address confusion at the start, the two further shots he fires while talking, the stretch where he has the gun against his head, and the handover to the negotiator who eventually talks him out. It is the offender talking, not a victim or a witness, for its entire length.

See also: Sebring Florida SunTrust Bank Shooting, Crime Scene Photos